


Scary Stories to Tell Around the Base

by ElloMenoP



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Creepy, Gen, Scary, Spooky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-19 13:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 32,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2390450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElloMenoP/pseuds/ElloMenoP
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I thought what better way to celebrate Halloween than by posting a spooky story starring the mercenaries every day for the month of October. Some are inspired by  <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scary_Stories_to_Tell_in_the_Dark">Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark</a>  by Alvin Schwartz with illustrations by Steven Gammell. Others by urban legends, T.V. and movies, or true stories.</p><p>All done!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bluford

It was Demoman who had first placed the dummy in their locker room, he had found it somewhere deep within a closet and thought it’d look funny in their locker room. It was Scout who had started to dress the dummy up, with rags taken from fallen enemies, everyone joined in with this practice until the dummy was a mismatch of blue hues and odd hats. It had become an unofficial mascot for the RED team, they named their dummy ‘Bluford’ and would place him at their campfires. Sometimes they’d even take him out just before a match started and mockingly hump or attack the dummy to show the BLU team what was to come. It really helped raise the team’s morale.

It was Sniper who had gotten angry after a long match and took his Kukri to the dummy in frustration. That soon became commonplace, they’d punch, kick, toss Bluford until their anger dissipated. They berated the dummy as if he were a real person, calling him names and questioning the purity of its nonexistent mother. At one party they had bought a blow-up sex doll and positioned the toy to be pegging Bluford, and then mocked the dummy for it.  They did other things too, things that would humiliate any human. Pyro had a tendency to dress it up in frilly dresses, silly hats, he sometimes had it attend tea parties, but more often cremations. 

Once night, during one of their campfire gatherings, well after each mercenaries was drunk beyond their limits, Bluford grunted. Spy had just slung his arm around the dummy in a friendly fashion, and said to him, “Bluford, for a sack of stuffing and a poor paint job you’re pretty entertaining.” He slurred through his words. 

That was when Bluford grunted loudly. Spy recoiled instantly and Scout snapped back in shock, “What the hell!” 

“You heard that, right?” Spy asked, seeking confirmation.

“Yeah! That thing totally made a sound!” Scout stood up and took a few paces away from the dummy.

From across the fire, Engineer asked, “What are you saying over there?”

Spy stood up as well and pointed to the dummy. “Bluford just grunted,” he informed the team. Scout tentatively kicked the dummy and withdrew quickly. Bluford didn’t move or make another sound, he slumped over as any inmate object would do when kicked.

“Ohh you two are tying to scare us!” Demoman assumed and smiled broadly. “Ahh but you’re not gonna trick ‘ol Demo!” The others laughed and agreed with Demoman’s claim despite Spy and Scout’s assurance that it was not a joke. The two share a worried look as they walked back to the base with the others.

“You heard it, right? I’m not going insane,” Spy asked Scout again, he was feeling slightly uneasy.

Scout hurried to agree. “Yeah I heard it! Sounded just like a Soldier does when you bash their skulls in.”

“Would you two quit it? You’re not gonna get us all worked up,” Engineer chided the two.

“We really did hear something!” Scout insisted, with a small whine in his voice.

“If you did- _which I don’t believe_ \- it was probably some animal that got inside ‘em, some tiny little mouse squeaking around.” Engineer left it at that. They all left it at that, Spy and Scout decided that, although the mouse would have to be quite loud, it was entirely possible. They didn’t try to convince the others again because soon enough Bluford provided his own evidence.

Heavy was the first one to notice that the dummy was moving around on its own. Small movements at first, its head would suddenly be in a different position, its hat taken off and exchanged for another. Initially, Heavy thought it was just the others playing around with Bluford, it wasn’t unusual for Heavy to leave Bluford in one position only to have Pyro come by later to play with the dummy. But when he asked the others all of them promised that they had not touched the dummy.

“It’s just Spy and Scout,” Sniper said, with a little disbelief that Heavy would fall for one of their tricks. 

“I do not know.” Heavy shook his head, he no longer liked the way Bluford’s face looked.  It seemed to have a new expression, one that was malicious.

Heavy wasn’t the only one to note the changes in Bluford. Soldier found Bluford’s constant changing to be disorderly and disrespectful. He’d get angry that he placed the dummy in one position, and in the next second, he’d be in another. One day, after the battle had finished Soldier respawned and was left alone in the locker room. Bluford was there standing by the door leading to the armory when Soldier had left him inside the dormitories.

“What do you think you’re doing!” Soldier yelled at the dummy. He grabbed it by the front and shook it. “You’re not supposed to be there! I did not leave you there! And wipe that look off your face!”

“Soldier!” Engineer snapped. “What are you doing?”

Soldier looked to the entrance of Respawn, his whole team was standing there, some were dumbfounded, others like Heavy and Scout, shared his fear. “He’s…he’s mocking me! He’s challenging me to…he’s…” Soldier trailed off, he wasn’t sure how to explain the danger they were in.

“He’s evil,” Scout finished for him

“This is ridiculous.” Medic rolled his eyes and moved to his own locker.

“I disagree,” Spy stated firmly. 

“Heavy agrees with Spy’s disagreement,” Heavy added.

“It’s just a bloody doll, quit getting worked up over it.” Sniper couldn’t believe how impressionable his team mates had become. 

Scout blushed a little, and frowned. “It’s not just a doll, I’m telling you that thing moves!”

That sparked a long conflict in the Respawn room. Everybody began shouting over the other so they could be heard, their points and counterpoints slowly fading to make way for personal insults and threats. The only thing that quieted the room, made each mercenary fall silent, was Bluford standing up and walking outside.

They followed him, each stewing in their own fears about what the dummy would do. They watched Bluford climb up a stack of crates and onto the roof. It stayed there all day and night, pacing back and forth over the rooftop. They could hear his footfalls as they ate dinner, as they cleaned their guns and readied for bed. They listened to his pattering as each tried to sleep in their darkened rooms, they were more afraid to hear him stop. They next morning they held a meeting to determine what to do with Bluford. 

“Mmph mhh!” Pyro offered.

“Yeah Pyro! Let’s burn him!” Scout said quickly.

“We can’t do that,” Demoman refused. “You can’t just burn cursed items like that, it’ll only release the dark entity.”

“How do we even know that it’s a ‘dark entity’?” Medic tried to keep from sounding condescending. “We should capture it and I can determine exactly what is causing movement and speech in an inanimate object.”

“Hell no!” Scout yelled. “We’re not keeping that thing in here any longer, come on Pyro!” He grabbed the masked man by the arm. “Let’s burn ‘em!”

Heavy prevented the two from leaving. “No we must do this right.”

“Yes, we mustn’t allow this  _thing_  to come back,” Spy pointed out. “Demoman, what are our options?”

“Science,” Medic muttered sulkily.

Demoman ignored the doctor and continued to explain Bluford to the best of his understanding. “The way I see it, is we brought him to life ourselves-”

“I did not authorize that!” Soldier was hasty to exclude himself from the blame.

“Easy, Soldier, we didn’t mean to bring him to life, we just did. It was all of our negative energy, all of our joking around with ‘em that made him real, made him angry,” Demoman finished.

“So how do we make him stop?” Scout asked.

“Well, if acknowledging him made real maybe ignoring him?” Demoman ventured a guess. “I’m not really sure.”

“All the more reason to test him,” Medic commented.

“All the more reason to get away from him,” Spy countered. “We cannot leave anything to chance.”

The two looked ready to butt heads, literally not figuratively, so Engineer cut in. “Fellas, calm down, look we gotta move out to a new base anyway why don’t we just leave Bluford behind?”

Everyone agreed and no one mentioned their guilt over what might happen if the dummy was let loose on the unsuspecting town nearby. Each mercenary packed up quickly, all to the soundtrack of Bluford’s footsteps on the roof. The dummy had been pacing back and forth nonstop. When they were ready to leave they divided into three different vehicles, confirmed the directions and began to drive off.

That’s when Engineer came to a stop, he had forgotten the intelligence. The briefcase was still locked up tight beneath the base. There was short argument over who was responsible, and who should go back to retrieve the case. 

“Scout, you’re the fastest you’ll be in and out before Bluford even notices,” Demoman persuaded the youth.

Begrudgingly, Scout accepted the task. He was scared, and he ran in as fast as he could. The others waited on edge, eager to leave and scared for the their teammate. At some point, Pyro mentioned how long it was taking and Demoman and Sniper were talked into checking up on Scout. They walked back toward the base silently, before they got within two hundred feet they saw Bluford stretching out Scout’s skin to dry on the sunbaked rooftop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is based of the story ‘Harold’ from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, by Alvin Schwartz.


	2. A Breath of Fresh Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Medic finds some lungs!

Medic was delighted to find a perfectly intact set of lungs after the day’s battle. They were just lying there in the dirt, not a tear or a speck of blood on them, and he became giddy with the thought of a new experiment.

He placed them carefully into a cooler in the back of his ambulance and shut the lid tightly. He was rounding the side of the vehicle when he felt his good mood sour instantly. Sitting in the cab were Scout and Pyro already shoving one another and bickering over the allotted space. 

He looked up ahead and saw that the rest of the team had already left the battlements in a caravan of Sniper’s camper and Engineer’s truck and that made the Medic sigh. “No fighting, no yelling, no touching anything or anyone, and no, we’re not stopping for snacks, the restroom, for women, not even for a horrific and bloody accident. Do I make myself clear?”

Medic watched the two idiots nod their heads and settle in as he turned the key in the ignition. Those rules lasted all of two minutes, Scout and Pyro began fighting over the radio, Pyro broke off the knob and shoved it Scout’s mouth and laughed when the boy began choking and turning blue. 

Mostly in anger, and in no way out of sympathy, Medic slammed on the breaks sending the Scout flying forward into the dashboard. His stomach hit the hard surface and he expelled the radio dial in exchange for air, then he turned his attentions on the Pyro.

“What the hell!” Scout attacked and scrabbled at the Pyro’s mask trying to block the air filter and give Pyro a taste of his own medicine.

Pyro mumbled something about passing a graveyard and having to hold your breath and how he was only trying to save Scout’s mortal soul and how he hated that song anyways.

“Enough,” Medic hissed. He stalked around his ambulance to the passenger side and pulled both Scout and Pyro out and into the dirt. “You can walk home.” He drove off, watching the two scuffle in his rearview mirror, feeling much happier.

Once he returned he went directly to his infirmary, he gently washed the lungs and set them aside on a metal tray for later. Then he washed himself and changed for the evening, joined the others for dinner, and finally retired to his office just as Scout and Pyro finally made it back.

He was sorting through paperwork on the day’s health stats when he heard a rasping sound. Convinced it was nothing, he continued his work. Moments later he heard the sound again, a long rasping like the sound of someone gasping for air. That’s what it had to be he decided, a sick patient in need of assistance. He left his office expecting to find a team mate, but there was no one waiting for him beside his examination table.

Still certain that the sound must have a source Medic inspected his infirmary. He leaned down by the radiator to find silence, he rotated his fridge to listen to the motor whirl perfectly, he even peaked outside his doors to see if Scout or Demoman were up to some childish prank.

As he was peering down the empty hall he heard it again, the grating sound of air traveling through a passageway. He quickly returned to his infirmary trying to follow the sound but it was already gone. Annoyed, Medic gave up his pursuit and completed his paperwork.

Winding down for the night, the doctor checked on his doves and then he heard the sound ringing out in the empty room and echoing off the walls, but yet, it was so quiet almost like a whisper. His birds flapped their wings in fright and shook against the bars, searching for a way out.

Medic soothed them through the cage and listened closely for the sound, tilting his head toward his fridge. “Ahh, there you are.” He made sure the bird cage was locked tight before walking over to the little fridge where he kept his baboon hearts, blood samples, and other perishable remains.

He pulled his stool over and climbed atop to get a better look at the air vent high on the wall. When he looked through the grate he could feel the air flow and hear the rasping sound, and he laughed a bit at how he missed such an obvious solution. He’d have Engineer look at it tomorrow, in the meantime he turned off the air conditioner and opened a window.

He changed into pajamas, got underneath the bedcovers, and placed his glasses on his nightstand. His room felt fresh with the cool night air flowing through the window and the moonlight illuminating the room. Then he felt his heart freeze with terror.

There was that sound again, but this time the rasping seemed louder and more desperate in the dark of the night. He could hear air being sucked in forcefully but it was never enough because the rasping did not cease. It went on and on, air being pulled in but never pushed out, there was no exhale. And it sounded too human to be the air vents.

Frightened, Medic got out of bed determined to find the source of the eerie sound and put an end to it. He went to the vent straight away and checked to see if the air had somehow been turned back on, but the vent was quiet. He could hear the rasping louder now, louder and echoing in the empty, cold room.

Medic tried to follow the sound but no matter what direction he turned in the rasping was too loud to pinpoint. It was starting to frustrate and scare him. He covered his ears to block the noise and suddenly, all at once, it was gone and he was left holding his breath.Then he realized that he wasn’t holding his breath, it was that he couldn’t breathe. He tried to take a large gulp of air but not one molecule of oxygen would pass into his lungs and he choked, feeling his eyes water and chest burn with need, and the rasping sound began again, except this time it was coming from him. 

He didn’t understand what could be causing this, there was no object blocking his airways, no rope around his neck, no allergies severe enough to asphyxiate him. He was getting lightheaded. He stumbled about his infirmary frantically searching for a scalpel he could use to create an airway. He took another desperate gasp with no payoff.

There on the counter he saw it, the reason for his choking: the lungs. They were expanding with air, breathing the way they normally would if inside a human person. The tissue was a deeper pink, healthier than we he picked them up, and when the muscle exhaled completely he could see the outlines of the bronchi and bronchioles. They were stealing his oxygen! Every breath he took the lungs expanded and exhaled while his own burned uselessly in his chest.

Then his vision swirled and darkened, all while he was wheezing and coughing, clawing at his throat. He scrambled for his scalpel but couldn’t get a grip on the instrument. Tears were streaming down his eyes and his face was turning blue, he tried to yell out for help but he could only make rasping wheeze. The lungs on the examination table continued to breath in and out, while Medic fell to the floor and ceased moving.


	3. Ding Dong Ditch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demo's doorbell gets rung.

Demoman was more than happy to spend a week at home completely alone. It had been so long since he’d been away from his eight, boisterous team mates and to top it off, his mother was gone as well. She went off to visit family in Scotland and Demo silently praised whatever god smiled down on him. He loved his mum, but sometimes she could be…taxing.

He could imagine her remarks if she knew he was taking a week off. “A week off? What’d you need to take off for you lazy sack of potatoes!” or, “Your father never took a day off!” Her shrill voice would be enough to send Demo looking for a second job in an instant.

After a round of binge watching Ghost D.A. Demoman called it a night, he locked up and turned off all the lights and got into bed. It was easy to fall asleep quickly in his king sized bed, all snug under the covers with a mountain of pillows. He was peacefully asleep, his body relaxed and his mind empty save for the sweetest dreams about explosions and pretty one-eyed women. He was ripped out of that bliss when his doorbell chimed loudly. 

He grabbed his clock from the nightstand, two-thirty in the morning, who could possibly be at his door at this hour? He wrapped his robe around him and put on a pair of slippers, as he walked downstairs he saw that the motion sensor porch lights were on. He peaked out the window and didn’t see anybody. “Is anybody there?” He called out.

There was no response, so he wrote it off as a wiring problem. Just as he was drifting off again the doorbell rang and startled him. He still didn’t think it was odd, if anything it backed up his idea that it was faulty wiring. He got up and checked anyway, the light was on again but no one was there. He grumbled and went back to bed.

He got a few winks of sleep when the doorbell rang again. This time he was annoyed, the last thing he wanted during his week off was interrupted sleep. Again, no one was there. He snapped the light off and disconnected the doorbell, he’d fix the wires tomorrow. He sighed as his head hit the pillow, he was looking forward to sleeping in.

The doorbell chimed.

Demoman’s eyes snapped open and he felt his heart skip a beat. There was no way the doorbell could ring, he disconnected the wire, he was sure of it. As he slowly descended the stairs he could feel his heart beating a mile a minute, then it sudden;y stopped when he saw the porch light on. He had turned that light off. His mind wandered through all the nasty possibilities, through all the chilling supernatural beings that could be waiting just outside for him.

He slowly opened his front door, every muscle tense and ready for the ghastly beast. He was just in time to see three laughing teenagers run off towards the main road. “Bloody kids! Piss off ‘fore I get me sword!” He screamed after them. He firmly shut his door went back upstairs all the while muttering about the youth of today, “…rotten kids, it’s too bloody late for pranks…they’re worse than Scout, lousy…” He didn’t contemplate the fact that his doorbell should have been unable to ring, or that his porch light shouldn’t have turned on, instead, he went straight to sleep.

There were no more interruptions and Demoman was able to slip back into fanciful dreams. He woke up in the early afternoon and treated himself to brunch and a few cocktails. He flipped the T.V. channels between Ghost D.A. and the local news. A lovely woman began a story on a horrific car crash involving three teenagers, and their school photos flashed on the screen, they were the same three teens ringing Demoman’s doorbell.

The Scotsman shook his head and presumed, “Probably crashed just after they left here.”

As the anchor woman continued the story she contradicted the Demoman, stating that the teens had died much earlier in the night, well before they got to Demoman’s home. The man felt chills run down his spine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> True story! Well kinda, I was home alone one night when my doorbell rang, at like two in the morning. I was freaked out because I know nasty people use all sorts of tricks to get people out of their homes late at night. So, I looked out a window and saw that my motion sensor light was on, so somebody had to be around, but I didn’t see any cars in our driveway or bikes, nor did I see anyone leave our porch. Super creepy, and it happened multiple times!


	4. Olly Olly Oxen Free!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pyro plays hide and seek.

“Pyro you sure you’re gonna be okay on your own?” Sniper watched the firebug carefully for any sign of distress but he couldn’t make anything out with their mask on. 

They nodded their head and gave a thumbs up. It wasn’t often that Pyro got left alone at the base, like Soldier, Pyro often created messes, unlike Solider, Pyro’s messes involved the fire department. Being home alone was great though, it was the only time Pyro got to play hide and seek.

The second Sniper’s van disappeared from view, Pyro ran upstairs and found one of their many stuffed animals. They gathered the other necessities and quickly prepared for the game. They cut open the stuffed toy and ripped out all of the stuffing, then refilled it with rice and a single strand of hair, and sewed the opening closed with red thread. Then they went upstairs and filled the bathtub with water and dropped the toy in. 

“For the first game I’m it and you have to hide!” They said, it was slightly muffled through their mask but it would suffice. Pyro went downstairs and turned off all the lights one by one. Then they waited in the kitchen with a knife and counted to one hundred. 

“…97,98,99, 100! Here I come!” They shouted, and went looking. The first place they went was the bathroom where they left the stuffed toy, it was still in the tub. They plunged the knife into the stuffed animal and yelled, “I win!”

They dropped the soggy toy on the floor, with the knife still sticking out, and told it, “Now you’re it!” Pyro ran off to find a hiding place. At first, they hid in the hall closet beneath a pile of dirty towels, but after hearing footsteps in hall one too many times they carefully snuck out and hid under a bed. The game went on like that for most of the night, they would hide and when they felt they’d be caught they’d run off to a new place. It was a thrilling game that rose in stakes every time they heard the stuffed animal get angry and roar.

Crashes and thumps could be heard all over the base, and when Pyro switched hiding places they saw that windows and plates had been shattered. They saw furniture overturned, and Medic’s doves released. They knew that once the game ended, at sunrise, they’d have to clean everything up but that was a price they’d pay for a night of fun.

Pyro heard distraught voices, then a shriek, and a grunt. There was a putrid smell, worse than rotten eggs, worse than anything Pyro had ever smelled before. Then in the silence of the empty base Pyro heard a growling voice yell out, “I win!” 

That confused Pyro, they were still hiding, they hadn’t been found, the game couldn’t be over. Tentatively, they left their hiding spot under a desk and investigated. It took some time to walk in between all the wreckage but eventually they found it, a trail of blood leading to the respawn room.

Soldier was sprawled out in a puddle of blood with the knife Pyro had used earlier sticking out of his chest. His stomach had been ripped open and rice hand been poured in to replace his organs. Pyro made a disappointed sigh, this was the problem with hide and seek, you could only play it alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently this is a thing [people actually do](http://365daysofhorror.tumblr.com/post/39703435342/playing-hide-and-seek-by-yourself-hitori-kakurenbo)


	5. He had an Axe! No It Was a Hook for a Hand!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sniper and Spy are necking in the woods when they are interrupted.

“Ah, watch the teeth!” Sniper shivered underneath Spy and pushed the man off him.

Spy pouted, but moved to sit on Sniper’s little bed rather than on the marksman. Sniper jumped down from his bed, took two steps and reached his kitchen. From the cabinets he pulled down two glasses, one a tumbler, the other a regular drinking glass. He filled both with a cheap whiskey and held the tumbler out to Spy.

“We have all night, love, let’s savor it,” Sniper purred, and took a sip from his glass. He then turned a knob on his beat up radio, he searched through the stations until he found the sound of saxophones and trumpets. With a drink in hand and the mood set, Sniper rejoined Spy on his bed and the two soaked up the ambiance.

Their casual conversation turned from one innuendo to another and soon they were back to mashing their lips together and groping one another. The whiskey and their arousal made them feel warm while soft jazz provided the perfect soundtrack for undressing. Sniper got lost between Spy’s moaning and the trumpets blowing that he didn’t notice that the Frenchman had stopped reciprocating. 

“Did you hear that?” Spy asked.

“What?” Sniper muttered into Spy’s neck, trying to get the man to divert his attention back to their foreplay.

“What the radio just said.”

“Hmm?”

Spy pushed Sniper away. “Hold on.” They both paused as the Disc Jockey interrupted for news bulletin. An escaped convict had been spotted in their area, he was considered dangerous and carrying a knife. Descriptive factors included a hook for a hand.

Sniper laughed at the absurdity. “Is this a joke? Is there really a man out there with a hook for a hand while we’re out parked in the woods?”

“Shh!” 

“Oh don’t tell me you’re spooked?” Sniper grinned at his lover.

Spy rolled his eyes. “Of course not, but did you hear that? And I don’t mean the radio.” 

The two quieted, and Spy snapped the radio off so they could hear better. There was a static sound and faint voice trying to penetrate the walls of the camper. It sounded so far off yet like the voice was right beside them.

“Oh!” Sniper snapped his fingers as he realized what the noise was. “It’s the base radio in the cab. Hold on.”

He scrambled off the bed, out his camper door, and around the side until he pulled open the driver’s side door. As he predicted, the little monitor radio was lit up with a wavy image of Engineer. He flicked on the volume.

“Hey mate,” Sniper greeted.

“Evening, Sniper. You seen Pyro around? Can’t find ‘em anywhere.” 

“Sorry, it’s just me and Spy out here,” Sniper gave a little laugh, “us and some bloke with a hook for a hand.”

Engineer’s picture showed confusion. “Huh?”

“Don’t worry about it, mate. If Pyro ends up going for a run in the woods we’ll be sure to ring you.” With that, Sniper snapped off the radio monitor and went back inside. “Was just Engineer looking for Pyro,” he explained.

“I bet you anything that Pyro heard that broadcast and went off to make a new friend,” Spy joked.

Sniper found his place on the bed once more and they resumed their previous actions. They were at it for some time, biting at one another, licking and sucking, hands wringing moans out of other while lips had each of them gasping for air. As sensual and pleasing their moves were, Sniper could tell Spy wasn’t wholly devoted to their lovemaking.

“Something wrong?” Sniper pulled up from their kiss to look Spy in the eye.

The man frowned and responded, “Something just isn’t right. I think we should leave.”

Sniper shot him an exasperated look. “I think two highly trained assassins could handle one nut job with a hook for a hand.”

“It’s not that,” Spy growled.

“Then what?”

“Call it intuition.”

“I call it cowardly,” Sniper muttered. Spy was about to retaliate when the shrieking sound of metal scraping metal filled the camper van. Seamlessly both men went on the defensive. Spy produced his butterfly knife and cloaked himself, Sniper slipped into a pair of pants and grabbed his Kukri. Both waited tensely for something to happen, and when no attack followed they silently agreed to leave.

“Do you think there’s a reward for him?” Sniper asked as they stepped out onto the thick soil.

“Just leave it to the police,” Spy answered, a little irritated. “You get paid enough as it is.”

The two separated, Spy going to the left and around the side of the van and Sniper to the right. Sniper reached the cab first and turned his key in the ignition only to have the engine sputter and die on him.

“Of all the bloody times…” He muttered to himself. He flicked on the radio monitor hoping to catch Engineer. The picture that came through was of their communication room, but something had been splattered over the camera. Even though the picture was in black and white Sniper knew it was blood.

“Spy? Something’s happened at the base.” Sniper quickly went around the side of the van to find the Frenchman, he almost walked straight into the axe that was sticking out of the metal siding right beside the window. “I thought he was supposed to have a hook?” 

“I don’t think he is our only concern right now.” Spy nodded to a clearing in the woods where a lone figure was standing in the shadows.

It took him only a moment to recognize the figure. “Pyro?” Sniper called to him gently.

Spy whispered, “Where’s his mask?”

Pyro turned to face the men, the clouds above parted enough for moonlight to shine down and reveal his hideous face, his mouth twisting into a grin that glinted brighter than any metal hook ever could.


	6. Texan BBQ

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Engie cooks for the team.

Engineer didn’t fancy himself a master chef, but he was sure one hell of a cook. He claimed meats to be his speciality, he loved smoking sausages, roasting lamb, charcoal grilling a tender steak, slow cooking ribs and slathering them in sauce, even simple hamburgers and hot dogs could be made into a fine cuisine under his spatula.

It was a shame that his team mates didn’t share his same enthusiasm for fine grilling. Pyro never liked anything that wasn’t well done, Sniper complained of too many spices, Heavy often mentioned that bear was a better quality meat.

He expected criticism from Spy, being French and generally disproving of all American foods, but he was struck hard by Scout’s complaining. The young man could and would eat anything from fizzy, radiation filled soda pop to slimy, month old sandwiches from the back of the fridge, yet he somehow found Engineer’s steak to be, “God what the hell is this crap? It’s like chewing rubber!”

Irritation gave way to offense, which slowly churred into outright rage one particular dinner. He cooked, with delicacy, sausage and peppers with fresh baked rolls and Scout had the audacity to pour ketchup all over his.

“Scout! That ain’t a hot dog, it don’t need ketchup,” Engineer tried to explain.

The boy took a large bit, smearing ketchup in the corner of his mouth. “Tastes better this way.”

“Scout, don’t talk with your mouth full,” Spy chided, and received a view of Scout’s open mouth chewing bits of sausage and roll for his trouble. He recoiled in disgust and said, “You are nauseating.”

Spy was rude enough to bring his own meal, on a fancy plate no less, with garnishing and lemon zest. He would take a bite and exaggerate its taste compared to the Texan’s cooking, passive aggressively gloating over his dinner. It made Engineer’s blood boil. What’s worse was Sniper and Demoman both making faces at their plates, and Sniper muttering, “Don’t understand why you always use so much seasoning.”

Engineer silently counted to ten before answering the Sniper. “It brings out the flavoring of the meat.”

The Australian stubbornly shrugged and replied, “Animals taste fine on their own they don’t need salt or pepper.”

Engineer could feel himself getting worked up, getting ready to lash out, but Soldier intervened, unknowingly saving the Sniper from a long argument. The American had grease and ketchup running down his chin as he worked his way through his plate, like Scout, he spoke with his mouth full. “When are we having ribs again?”

The Texan perked right up, he could always count on Soldier to be a fan of meat no matter its type or preparation. “I’ll go out pick up some short ribs next week, how’s that sound?”

“No, no, no,” Soldier swallowed a large bite, “I want ribs from  _The Rib Place._  They’re much better than yours.”

Engineer felt like he had been sucker punched, his ribs were perfected from generations of hard work and careful calculations, he could not be outdone by some chain restaurant. “Soldier, I told you they don’t make those ribs right, they boil them first. You can’t boil ribs, it takes away from the flavoring.”

“What’s the difference? You slather them in sauce anyway,” Sniper interjected.

“Man forget ribs, I want tacos. We haven’t have tacos in forever,” Scout added. Instantly the dinner table erupted into arguments over next weeks course, and broke off into smaller arguments over what constituted sides versus main dishes. Engineer could stomach through this, he did so at least once a week, it was frustrating but it wasn’t the end of the world.

The last straw eventually came though, came in the form of Medic’s condescending tone. The German was normally too engrossed in his experiments to ever take meals with the team, let alone acknowledge what kind of food he was eating. But tonight, he took one bite of the sausage and could not keep himself from criticizing, he was a German after all.

“Ach! What is this filth?” He sniffed at the sausage at the end of his fork and frowned. “I suppose this is the let down of store bought meals,” he remarked and dropped his fork.

With full hostility Engineer spat out, “Actually they’re made from scratch.”

“Tastes like they’re made from shit,” Medic commented, and the table burst out in laughter.

Red-faced and angry, Engineer lost it. “Fine you don’t want my cooking then don’t eat it.” He began pulling plates away from the men, snatching forks right out of their hands. He expected them to apologize, to feel the tiniest bit of remorse for insulting him. Instead, Scout jumped up and suggested, “All right! Now we can have tacos!”

Engineer threw the dishes into the sink, taking satisfaction in the sound of them shattering, and stormed out of the kitchen. When he reached his workshop he silently fumed and paced back and forth, promising to never cook for them again. Back and forth he walked, trying to calm himself, when an even better idea struck him. He would cook for them again. He’d cook the best meal they ever had.

It took him some time to get the proper meat and ingredients, then even longer to pick the best cuts, and almost twice as long to cook it all. He put more effort into roasting, smoking, boiling, and sautéing than he ever put into an engineering project. Then he set the table as nicely as the base’s amenities allowed for. When he gathered the whole team for dinner he started off with an apology. 

“I just wanted to apologize for losing my temper the other night, I thought I’d try cooking something special for the each of you, something that’d appeal to each of your unique tastes.” Engineer smiled broadly and motioned to each individual plate before the eight men.

Pyro mumbled and pointed to Engineer’s empty place setting. “Ah, that’s all right, Pyro, I’ll eat later.”

“Will you be having crow?” Medic chuckled, then he picked up his fork and pushed the meat on his dish around. “Exactly what are we eating?”

“Like I said, each plate is different so just dig in and enjoy,” Engineer urged the others on, and sat down once they all picked up their forks. He watched gleefully as each member of his team ate bite after bite trying to discern what type of food they were eating. 

“Tastes a bit like haggis,” Demoman said after he swallowed another bite.

“Oh, you’re not far off,” Engineer replied. Soldier barely said a word as he devoured rib after rib, Heavy ate with his usual appetite, finishing his plate and already reaching for seconds. Even Spy worked though his plate with dainty bites and reluctantly admitted the food to be savory. It was Sniper to figure it out first.

“This don’t taste like any animal I’ve ever had,” He remarked, looking skeptically at his plate. He stabbed his slab of meat and watched blood corse out. “It tastes like…” And his eyes went wide and he pushed his plate away forcefully. “You bloody psycho!”

Engineer couldn’t fight the laughter from bubbling up. He couldn’t stop laughing as Sniper told the others exactly what they were eating, he was hysterical when Medic vomited up the gray matter he had served him. He couldn’t hardly breathe while Scout ran about in a frenzy, trying to rid his mouth from the taste of human flesh with BONK!

He was able to calm down just enough to hear Spy question, “Where did you get human flesh?” The Frenchman was answered by the victims themselves, outside the dead BLU team banged their fists on the windows, each bloody and missing parts of themselves. They groaned, and one broke through the window. They came pouring in after that, each moaning out asking who had their hearts, their livers, their ribs.

His team was terror stricken, each immobilized by the scene of the undead demanding their organs back. The dead kept asking, “Who, who, WHO, WHO!”

 

Eventually, Engineer answered them, he pointed to his team mates and said, “That would be those boys right over there.” The dead descended on his team, tearing and ripping them apart to get their organs back while the men screamed in agony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is based of the story ‘Just Delicious’ from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, by Alvin Schwartz.  
> Also, if you're not reading these off my tumblr you're missing out on the adorable pixel art I post with each story! [ello-meno-p](http://ello-meno-p.tumblr.com/)


	7. Hunted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scout is hunted.

Scout’s lungs burned, his muscles were sore and weak, his feet ached for rest, and he could hardly see through all the sweat dripping off his brow, but he couldn’t stop if he stopped he’d be killed. He stumbled along the dusty ground and tried to keep his head up, keep looking forward, but there was a nagging in his brain, one that told him to turn around, to see if it was still following him.

He had started out yesterday morning at a sprint, until he had enough distance from the thing. Then he slowed to regular pace, then to a jog. He thought there was no way the thing could catch up to him, he was dead wrong. He told himself that there was no way that thing could have the same stamina as he, he was wrong there too, and now he was ambling along the desert with no safety in sight.

He vaguely remembered Sniper talking about hunting techniques, about something called ‘persistence hunting.’ The marksman explained how hunters used their endurance to follow prey to the point of exhaustion, until the prey just gave up and allowed itself to be killed. Though, Scout could remember Sniper saying that only humans used that method and whatever it was that was following him definitely wasn’t human.

The red rocks and orange dirt was all starting to blur together, he was getting too hot and there was no coverage from the sun’s harsh rays. Scout ventured a look behind him, almost too scared to see how close it was, and it was close. It was hairless except for a few scraggly strands falling off of its lumpy head. It’s skin had a yellow tint to it, and it’s large eyes took up half of it’s face, the other half was devoted to a giant mouth full of pointed teeth. That’s how it ran, with it’s mouth wide open, a warning sign of what was to come if the Scout stopped running.

If he could just make it somewhere safe, into town, even to a road he could find a way to fight it, he could get help or find a weapon. But he was so lost, everything looked the same out in the desert, the same rocks, the same sand, he couldn’t even distinguish one rock formation from another. He came to realize that the thing directed him here, carefully flanked him and prevented him from running toward civilization. It was smarter than he thought.

He was starting to feel hopeless, he couldn’t go much further without water, without rest. He had already jogged through the night, that was when it caught up, when it got close enough for Scout to see. It was off in the distance that night, a little speck that got larger and larger as Scout got more and more fatigued. 

He wiped sweat from his forehead, checked behind him. It was even closer now, he could see the drool trickling down from his open mouth. He wished he knew what it was or knew its weakness. The thing was too thick skinned for bullets, knives did nothing, they didn’t have a chance to try anything else before it gobbled them up, until Scout was the last of them. He stumbled again and he willed himself to stay alert. He was barely at a jog, and it was closer, it wouldn’t be long now.


	8. Coffin Nail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merasmus interrupts the Administrator one too many times.

“Idiots! Stop dancing and get on the point!” The Administrator screamed into her microphone. Her frustration was reaching new levels of, ‘goddamn these idiot mercenaries maybe it’s time to replace them.’ She grit her teeth and resisted the urge throw her ashtray at the monitors. “No, don’t work together! You’re supposed to kill each other!”

In the end she did throw her ashtray. Miss Pauling hurried to clean up the broken glass and cigarette stubs, but she waved the young woman away, it wasn’t in her job description to clean up after her. Helen laced her fingers together and watched the mercenaries bumble about with bombs strapped to their heads. “Pauling, how does one kill a witch?”

“A witch, ma’am?” Pauling pushed her glasses up and looked through her clipboard of papers. “Are you referring to Merasmus? I believe he’s classified as a wizard, ma’am.”

The Administrator didn’t acknowledge her mistake. “So how do we kill her?”

“I’ll see to did, ma’am,” Miss Pauling promised and left the room. She returned hours later with a hammer, nail, and black marker, The Administrator didn’t question it. “According to local folklore the best way to kill a wizard is to find a black walnut tree, draw an image of them on the trunk, and then hammer a nail into the image. The lore states that if you hammer the nail in everyday it will weaken the being and eventually kill them.”

The Administrator grinned and watched Merasmus on the monitor. “You know what to do,” she said. 

Miss Pauling turned to leave, but stopped in the doorway. “One last thing, ma’ma, the wizard may send someone to borrow something. If you give it to them it will break the spell.”

“Noted.” Helen blew smoke onto the screen and watch it curl around the image of the pesky wizard. 

Miss Pauling drove out to the base where the mercenaries were warring. She was not jarred by the rockets soaring past her, or the grenades launched her way, she easily side-stepped a swing from a Sniper’s Kukri, and ignored the burst of flames from two battling Pyros. She found a black walnut tree on the edge of the battleground and frowned at the marker in her hand. She wasn’t exactly the best artist.

“Hey Miss Pauling!” Scout came running up to her, easily hopping over the fence with a goofy grin on his face. 

The young woman smiled  genuinely at him. “Scout, perfect!”

Scout beamed at the greeting, then asked, “What are you doing all the way out here?”

“You can draw pretty well right?” Miss Pauling overlooked Scout’s question. “Do me a favor?”

“Yeah! Totally! What do you need?” The runner hurried to accommodate her. It took all of ten minutes to doodle a Merasmus into the tree bark. “Pretty good huh?”

“Yes, this will do perfectly,” Miss Pauling said, then she lined up the hammer and nail and sent the nail about half an inch into the tree.

“So you’re into artists?” Scout tried to ask casually as he leaned on the tree.

Miss Pauling was too busy gathering her papers and supplies to pay attention to Scout. Once she had her things in order she thanked Scout for his assistance and walked back through the battleground to her car. Scout stood by the tree feeling a little hollow on the inside.

Over the next few days Merasmus continued to disrupt battles, curse her employees, send books and eyeballs after the mercenaries, even as a ghost the wizard continued to get in the way of her plans. She had Miss Pauling drive out to the tree and send the nail in another inch. The wizard persisted though, casting misfired spells and distracting her mercenaries from capping the point. Miss Pauling drove the nail into the tree even further, and still he remained a nuisance. Finally, once the nail was halfway into the drawn image she got results. Merasmus didn’t show up to any battles to curse, attack, or screech at her men. 

“Ma’am?” Miss Pauling interrupted her thoughts. “Soldier is here to see you.”

“Hello, Administrator,” Soldier said happily and waved at her from behind Miss Pauling. 

She narrowed her eyes with suspicion and blew smoke out of her nostrils like a dragon. “What is it?” She snapped.

Soldier recoiled slightly. “Uhh…Merarmus was wondering if he could borrow some…” He trailed off, either he forgot what he was supposed to ask or he couldn’t come up with something on his own. His eyes landed on the pack of cigarettes besides The Administrator’s microphone. “Cigarettes! He needs a cigarette!”

“No.” The Administrator swiveled her chair back around to face the large television monitors.

“He really needs it though! He has an addiction!” Soldier tried, but he was sent away. It was only a day later that Soldier was back asking for cigarettes again, Helen sent him away once more. “He can’t go on the patch though! He has no body for it!” She had Miss Pauling send the nail in a bit further and that evening Soldier came by asking again. “Please Mrs. The Administrator, Merasmus really needs those cigarettes he’s dying of not dying by smoking.”

“I don’t have any cigarettes,” she replied coldly, sliding her pack closer to her and away from Soldier.

Head down, Soldier left the Administrator to tell Merasmus the bad news. Later that night, Merasmus came himself. He looked weak, paler than normal, he hair was brittle, and he didn’t glow as brightly in his ghost form. “Please have mercy!” He begged.

“No.”

He got down on his knees and scrambled to show his desperation. “My lady, I’m begging you! I’m at my wit’s end, my body can’t take much more!”

The Administrator narrowed her eyes with suspicion, then slowly calculated her options. She considered all her plots currently in motion and came to a conclusion. “Tom Jones.”

Merasmus looked up with confusion. “What?”

“Tom Jones. Get close to him.” She didn’t have to explain anything to him.

“Tom Jones? Get close…then what?” He had to accept, he didn’t have a choice.

“That’s all for now.” She turned away from him, signifying the end of the conversation. 

“And you’ll remove the nail?” Merasmus asked with urgency.

She gave one curt nod to Pauling and that’s all that was needed. Soon she’d have everything in place, Tom Jones, the Australium, Saxton Hale, even the moon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is based of the story ‘Such Things Happen’ from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, by Alvin Schwartz.


	9. Monsters in the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soldier and Lt. Bites try to sleep.

Soldier readied for bed, he set up his uniform for the next morning, made sure his weapons were cleaned and set aside neatly, he pulled the shade to his window down. Lastly, he went downstairs and brought  Lieutenant Bites upstairs. He set the raccoon down on his bed and settled in next to him. Just as he turned off the light Lieutenant Bites jumped down from the bed and scratched at the door.

“No, Lieutenant Bites it’s time for bed now,” Soldier told the raccoon. The animal did not listen, it continued to scratch at the door and whine until Soldier gave in. With great effort Soldier got out of bed and let the raccoon out. “You’re just going to come back in ten minutes,” Soldier muttered to the creature.

Having a pet raccoon was tons of fun, they liked to bite and climb and cuddle, and destroy things. There were downsides though, they were nocturnal creatures which meant every night when Soldier settled down for bed Lieutenant Bites would demand to be let out. He’d spend a portion of the evening digging through garbage, chewing on the furniture, and peeing all over the common room, then he’d wake Soldier up in the middle of the night to be let back into the bedroom.

It was very bothersome to be woken up every night like that, but Soldier loved Lt. Bites more than anything and he’d make allowances for the fury little animal. That night, however, Soldier was so tired that when Lt. Bites came back to scratch at the door Soldier ignored him. He was too exhausted to even roll over and face the door, eventually Lt. Bites gave up and wandered away. Soldier went back to sleep.

Fifteen minutes later, there was a scratching at the door again, the sound cut through the silence of the night and gradually woke Soldier from his sleep. Groggily, Soldier turned over in his bed and pulled the blanket up over his head. Bites could sleep downstairs for the night.

The scratching persisted, long claws scraping on the wooden door nonstop, breaking any comfort the American had had in the dark, silent room. Soldier could hear the animal getting impatient, the raccoon was growling on the other side and Soldier finally got out of bed. In the darkness he searched blindly for the door knob, found it, and pulled the door open just enough to let the creature in.

It scurried in and jumped into bed, Soldier followed quickly and felt  Bites curl up around his legs. Soldier fell asleep quickly and didn’t wake again until the early morning when he heard scratching at his door. It must be Bites trying to get out for his morning routine. Soldier stood up and stretched, he yawned and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and walked to the door. 

Bites was not waiting beside the door, yet there was still a scratching sound. Soldier was confused, the scratching was coming from the other side but Bites was still in his bed, he pulled the door open and saw Lt. Bites sitting there. From behind him Soldier heard a low, monstrous growl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m really afraid one night I’ll let my cat into my room, and it won’t be my cat


	10. Grave Follies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Medic does not believe in superstitions...

“…to settle the matter, her father had the farm boy’s grave dug up, they opened the casket and there around his neck was the very bandana she placed on him the night before.” Sniper leaned over the fire so the light made shadows across his face and added to the scary tale.

“I’ve heard tha’ one before,” Demo said, and adjusted his marshmallow so it wouldn’t burn over the fire. “Now I’ve got one, it’s a true story too. You see there was this couple, a young couple that decided to park out by the woods for a bit of snogging and-”

“And a hook handed man comes after them. Yes, we’ve ALL heard that one before,” Spy interrupted.

Demoman’s brow furrowed and he pouted slightly. “Well why don’t you tell one?” He crossly asked.

“I haven’t got any,” Spy replied. They all sat silent around the fire while each man tried to remember a scary story that hadn’t been heard before. 

Then Scout said through the silence, “Did you know that if you stand on a grave at midnight whoever’s buried there will grab you and pull you under?”

Pyro mumbled in fright and held onto to Sniper’s arm, cutting off the circulation. Some of the others nodded their heads or commented that it was true, but Medic scoffed.

“That is ridiculous, all of these stories are ridiculous,” he stated, and crossed his arms.

“Not-uh!” Scout defended. “My brother’s best friend’s cousin totally did it and now he’s got these bruises around his ankle where the dead grabbed him.”

Medic rolled his eyes. “Sounds like you’re brother’s whatever is as foolish as you.”

Scout pouted at that comment. “If you’re not scared why don’t you go do it,” he challenged.

That got the attention of all the men, they each buzzed with the oncoming entertainment. It was agreed, they’d drive out to a cemetery and Medic would prove how much of wet blanket he was by standing on a grave. On the whole ride there Scout kept making remark after remark, “Who’s gonna look after your birds after you’re dragged to hell?” “Who’s Heavy gonna go crying to during a battle?” “Do you think you’ll scream like a little girl when the dead guy grabs you? Or will you just wet your pants?”

By the time they arrived at a cemetery Medic was more than irritated by Scout’s nonstop  harassment. He was now determined to piss Scout off the most. They all got out of their cars and Heavy and Medic stood by the entrance of the cemetery.

“Oi! You can’t bring your boyfriend with you,” Sniper pointed out.

“Yeah, that ain’t fair!” Scout agreed.

Heavy shot both men a mean look. “Then how else we know Doktor stood on grave?”

They thought for a moment, then Sniper pulled his Kukri from his hip and handed it to the doctor. “Here stick this in the grave as proof.”

Medic accepted the knife kissed Heavy on the cheek and stalked off into the cemetery. It was a large and dark cemetery, full of small twisting paths between the plots, and many old, unreadable gravestones. Medic decided to go in as far as possible to prove Scout wrong. He found a little, rundown grave and stabbed the large knife firmly into the dirt. He waited a few moments, knowing that nothing was going to happen, but he didn’t want to be accused of leaving too soon. So he waited on the chilly grave.

Finally, he checked his watch and decided that enough time had passed. He moved to leave but he could not move from the grave. A sudden fear struck him, he felt his stomach drop and his blood freeze. He made to move again and found that something had hold of his leg. The cemetery that was once just a cemetery had turned sinister, its twisting paths turned into mazes, the gravestones all looked like vicious gargoyles, and the wind turned into the wail of a dozen banshees. 

Medic’s scream caught in his throat as he yanked his leg to get free of the being that held him. He would not be taken by the dead! He struggled and shouted for help but he was too far away for his team to hear. With one final, desperate jerk he wrenched his leg free and he ran all to the entrance.

When he rejoined his team he was pale as a sheet and out of breath, the men could tell something strange had happened. Before Scout could gloat, or Spy could say, “ _Non_ , you are joking,” or Engineer could ask, “What happened?” Heavy knocked his team mates aside with a concerned, “Doktor!” He ran forward and grasped Medic close.

Pyro tugged on Medic’s lab coat and asked, “Mmph Mmmphh?”

“It’s true, something grabbed me,” Medic confessed, and he showed his pant leg where the cloth had been torn from the clutches of a dead man.

Scout was about to give Medic a hard time, but then the wind picked up and the way it cut through the gravestones made it sound like the moans of the dead. Suddenly Scout didn’t feel so tough any more, and he grabbed hold of Heavy’s arm. They left after that, each man questioning Medic about what happened, and the German shakily describing the event.

Back in the cemetery, between the twisting paths and crooked gravestones, in a dark and small grave, Sniper’s Kukri stuck out of the cold ground with a piece of Medic’s pant-leg stuck on the blade. Medic had unknowingly pinned himself to the grave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is based of the story ‘The Girl Who Stood on a Grave’ from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, by Alvin Schwartz.


	11. Piece By Piece

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heavy finds a puzzle.

Heavy wandered from room to room looking for entertainment. He rarely had downtime between Sasha’s maintenance, the Doctor’s experiments, and the numerous letters to write home. He was out of books to read and every recommendation from Engineer or Medic was nonfiction and about mechanics or advanced operating techniques. Television did not interest him, American humor or plot lines never made sense to him. He rummaged through the common room for a chess board.

“Spy, where is chess pieces?” Heavy questioned as he dumped out the game pieces onto a table. There were only a handful from the original set, a black rook, two black pawns, a white bishop, and a white knight, and three white pawns. The rest of the box included a scratched up board and small objects like salt and pepper shakers, plastic army toys, a few stray checkers, paper clips bent out of shape, and bullets of varying sizes.

The Frenchman took his eyes off his book to peer at the Heavy. “Our base lacks proper amenities, our water is poisoned with lead and you wonder where the chess pieces are?” Spy returned to his book without a second thought.

Heavy grumbled at the dry response but ignored the Spy overall. He spent the next twenty minutes rearranging the pieces and determining the role of each random object. By the time he finished, a few members of his team filled the common room.

“Demoman!” Heavy bellowed happily. “Come play with Heavy.” 

The Scotsman gave a polite smile but his face already expressed rejection. “Sorry, big guy, but quite invested in this story.” He nodded at the television.

Heavy didn’t bother to invite Pyro or Spy, Pyro liked the game but was a sore loser. Now that Heavy thought about it, that was probably the reason so many pieces were missing.

“Little Scout, come learn chess, is good game for men.” He beckoned the Scout forward with one large hand. 

The young man frowned. “I told you to quit callin’ me little.” He adjusted the laces on his running shoes. “And I got better things to do,” he said and left the base for an evening run.

Heavy deflated and swept the pieces back into the box, and dejectedly returned to the cabinet full of broken and mismatched games and toys. He crammed the chess set between three board games and a back gammon set. Then something caught his eye, in the far corner of the cabinet was a simple cardboard box gathering dust. He pulled it out and opened it up. 

Inside were thousands of tiny puzzle pieces. He dug through the pieces utterly confused to find each piece was black and held no part of a larger picture. He shrugged and thought it would be a challenge. Back at his table the Heavy labored for hours to organize the pieces and build one whole edge of the puzzle. There was still no clue to what the larger picture could possibly be but Heavy found the monotony of the project to be soothing.

The night hours were slowly dwindling into morning hours and Heavy had to quit his work if he wanted a full night’s sleep. He spent the next week obsessing over the puzzle, any free time was devoted to uncovering its mystery. He became irritated when interrupted or when he couldn’t work past a difficult section. And increasingly more angry that no piece revealed a photo.Yet, the longer he worked the more he accomplished.

It was a month later that a picture began to form, Heavy was ecstatic. He combed through the pieces and matched them up carefully, his fat fingers fumbling over the the tiny section. Slowly, he uncovered a pair of legs, then arms, then a face, Sniper’s face.

Heavy’s face crinkled with confusion. Why would Sniper be in a puzzle? He inspected the finished portion further, he could see the edge of another arm forming he could tell by the wrapping that it was Scout’s. He couldn’t remember there ever being a novelty puzzle comprised of the team’s photo. Despite his confusion, Heavy moved forward sifting through the pieces for any one that could complete Scout’s portion. As much as he would have loved to continue, the next day would be a difficult battle and he needed to prepare. He left his table, pushing in his chair and giving the puzzle one last glance. 

Heavy was too focused on shooting down the enemy to notice that Sniper was missing from the battle. It wasn’t until that evening’s dinner that someone mentioned the Aussie had been absent.

“Probably gone on a hunting trip,” Engineer assured everyone.

Heavy spent the rest of the night putting Scout’s portion of the puzzle together. The next morning no one could find Scout, though no one was alarmed. 

“More likely than not he went for a run and got himself stranded somewhere. He’ll respawn once he dies of starvation or dehydration,” Medic said, as if Scout had done this thousands of times.

Like the others, Heavy did not find their missing team mates particularly suspicious. Sniper was a hermit and often went into the woods for extended periods of time, and a break from Scout’s endless talking was much needed. When the others went missing he made excuses, Demoman was probably hungover in a gutter somewhere, and Engineer must have gone out for scrap metal. Pyro was always secretive and Soldier was too unpredictable to keep track of.

These were all the things Heavy told himself when each member went missing just after he pieced together their image. It was odd, but correlation did not equal causation, that was until Medic went missing. The last of his team left was Spy, and the Frenchman did not entertain his theory in the least bit.

“Heavy,” Spy rubbed his temple, “that is preposterous. A puzzle has no bearing on the whims of our team.”

“But whole team is missing!” 

“And they will come back in their own time.” 

“I understand Demo, he is no good with time or places. And Pyro, he, she, is…” Heavy let his silence complete his thought. “But Doktor would not leave, he would not go too far from his experiments.”

“Perhaps all those law enforcement officials finally caught up with him. All those skeletons he stole, whatever it was that he did to that ambassador. It’s entirely plausible that he left in a hurry, has gone into hiding.” Spy turned to leave, but Heavy grabbed onto him.

“He would not leave birds behind.”

Spy paused, considered all of his collected information on the doctor and knew Heavy was right, but to believe a puzzle had been causing the anomaly was too ridiculous. “Okay, I can admit our colleagues have most likely been taken or killed, but to believe it is a puzzle’s doing is absurd. I would hazard to guess the Administrator no longer needs our expertise.”

“Spy, please.” Heavy turned his blue eyes on the Frenchman, trying to relate all his worry in one look. “I am logical man. Men killed my father, men put me and my family in prison. I know men are the real monsters, but this puzzle…there is something very wrong with it.”

The assassin rolled his eyes. “Do not be stupid-”

“I am not being stupid!” Heavy argued.

“Fine!” Spy stalked over to the little table covered in puzzle pieces. “Then let’s experiment, let’s see what happens we when finished the puzzle.”

“Spy no!” Heavy quickly pulled the pieces away, safeguarding them behind his meaty arms. “We don’t know what will happen!”

“That’s why we must find out,” Spy explained, somewhat condescendingly. The quicker he got Heavy off the subject of the supernatural, the quicker they could strategize against the real threat. “Hand me a piece,” he demanded and held out an open palm. “Hand me  _my_ pieces.”

Against his better judgment, Heavy allowed Spy to piece together his portion of the puzzle, snapping the little bits of shaped cardboard together until just his foot needed completion. Spy arched a brow at Heavy and gave him the same look an exasperated adult would give a child. “We’ll have our answers, _oui_?”

They placed the last piece in, and Heavy felt sick to his stomach with apprehension. “There. Nothing has happened to me.” Spy demonstrated his continued existence by smacking Heavy in the arm then saying, “Now we must focus on our true enemy.”

Then Spy was gone. It was like he was never in the room to begin with. “Spy?” Heavy called out. “Is not funny. Do not cloak!” Deep down Heavy knew that Spy was not playing a joke, there was not swishing sound of the cloak activating, or puff of smoke for him to disappear in. Heavy was left in a eerie, sickening silence. He was afraid to finish the puzzle, but more terrified to take it apart.


	12. Clowning Around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spy and friends go to the circus.

Having any form of entertainment come to this backwater town was a godsend, any traveling performers, any music festival, any fairs, even town hall meetings held more enjoyment than the rundown bars. This weekend a carnival had come to town, overnight large tents were erected, small rides were built up, animals caged and on display, games set up with giant prizes surrounding the booths to tantalize carnival goers. It was loud and colorful and Spy didn’t mind walking around with his team mates throughout the crowds of overweight townsfolk and their spoiled children. 

Spy got an extra kick from placing bets with the others on how long it would take Soldier to be forcefully removed from the carnival. They wandered around until they reached the ride section which included the tunnel of love. Heavy and Medic took off instantly, and Pyro had grabbed Engineer with such vigor he nearly ripped the man’s robotic arm off. They lost Soldier as soon as he spotted the animal tent. Scout took silly photos at a photo booth, but his pictures never printed. They kept walking through the crowd and past games until they found a fun house.

“Awesome!” Scout ran ahead to buy the tickets.

“This looks like something that’d be more fun with a little help,” Demoman said with sly grin and a wink. He pulled a flask from his pocket and took a huge gulp. He passed it off to Sniper, the Australian copied the bomb-thrower, then passed the flask on to Spy. He had one whiff of the contents and declined. “Suit yourself,” Demoman said. 

By the time they had made it through the line Demoman and Sniper were buzzed and struck with the giggles. Scout was sullen that he was passed over and had to go through the fun house sober, but he perked up when he saw a group of young women ahead of them. He started to chat them up with hopes of going home with one of them.

Spy couldn’t resist poking a little fun at the runner. He cloaked, and in the darkness of the black-light room he snuck up behind Scout and grabbed him. He wasn’t expecting the high pitched squeal, or for the boy to run and hide behind one of the women, and that had Spy snorting with laughter, “Oh your face!”

Sniper howled along with him. “Mate, he got you good!” 

Demoman was too out of breath from laughing to make a comment. Scout’s face burned red with embarrassment and he went from good mood to sullen instantly. “You’re a freakin’ jerk, Spy!” He stalked ahead, but had to slow his pace so he wouldn’t run into the group of laughing women.

Near the end they had lost Demoman and Sniper, they were going through a tunnel with spinning walls, it was hard to walk through sober and the two could barely hold onto the railings let alone take a step through. Spy and Scout prevailed with little difficulty and made it to the mirror maze, Spy was having a fun time watching Scout bump into reflection after reflection.

“Shut up!” He snapped at Spy as he finally got past the last set of mirrors. The very end of the funhouse was a long slide that led to the exit of the building, but what was accompanying it had Spy freeze with terror.

The Frenchman had very few fears, most of which were completely rational, fear of death, fear of being caught during a mission, a healthy enough fear of heights that kept him out of dangerous situations. But there was one fear that completely consumed him since childhood, one he could not overcome. A mere hundred feet ahead of him was a smiling clown.

He was tall with unnatural, curly, red hair, his face was covered in white makeup with blue diamonds outlining his eyes, and a large, abnormal red smile. He gave a high pitched laugh as he waved Spy forward. He couldn’t move, he felt his heart thumping through his chest, his mouth was dry, and he feet felt like cinder blocks. Scout went ahead and turned back when Spy didn’t follow. “You coming, douchebag?”

With his eyes wide and his lip trembling all Spy could do was whimper. The clown impatiently waved him over, and Scout looked at him funny. The clown had enough, he stalked over to Spy and grabbed him by the arm to shove him down the slide. Spy reacted badly, he screamed and thrashed, “Get away from me!”

Scout finally looked like someone at a carnival should look, he smiled widely, his eyes were bright with joy, and he was laughing in contrast to Spy’s screams. He watched with glee as Spy was forcefully thrown down the slide, and he hurried to follow him.

“You’re afraid of clowns!” Scout said it with a certain disbelief. The kind of disbelief you had when you found out that a cool, suave assassin who looked down on people who didn’t wear expensive suits was afraid of the silliest, most harmless thing imaginable. 

Spy was still trying to settle his nerves. “Be quiet!” He hissed at the boy.

The others had joined up with them now, and Sniper and Demo had come tumbling down the slide in a fit of giggles. Scout quickly and excitedly told the group about Spy’s fear. “He was screaming like girl!” 

Many had found the story hysterical, it was so rare that they ever had leverage on Spy. Scout spent the majority of the afternoon pointing out every clown related item or show to Spy. He’d wave over any clown within proximity until Spy was shaking and ready faint. It got to the point where Spy had to concede, he left in haste for the safety of his own room.

“Hehe, freakin’ jerk,” Scout laughed to himself.

“Now, Scout,” Engineer’s stern voice carried over the crowd. “Was that necessary?”

“Don’t give me crap for that, Engie, he deserves it,” Scout said, with a bit of meanness. 

“You go apologize to him,” the Texan commanded. “I’m not giving you any more tickets ‘till you do. And here,” Engie thrust a dozen or so stuffed prizes Pyro had won. “Take those home will ya?”

Scout didn’t have a chance to refuse because Soldier had yelled over the crowd to them. “Engineer! I released all of the animals!”

“Weren’t there tigers here?” Medic asked.

Engineer groaned and rubbed his temples. “Sniper, tell me you can wrangle tigers?” 

Scout left, apologizing to Spy might be less painful than wrestling tigers and lions and whatever else Soldier had freed. It was a short walk back to the base, and he dumped the prizes in the common room and went in search for Spy.

The assassin had locked himself away in his private smoking lounge and inhaled cigarette after cigarette but his nerves were still rattled. Every time he closed his eyes all he could see were their smiling faces, smiles too big to belong to any human, and skin so pale and eerie. A drink would set him right, but he couldn’t drink scotch without ice. He walked out, and down the hall, through the common room, and he nearly died of fright.

In the pile of stuffed prizes was a life-sized clown doll, red hair streaked with yellow, blue adorning its eyes, and it’s mouth outlined with red. Every muscle, including his heart, was frozen with fear. He quickly dashed to the safety of his room, and sealed the door behind him. He slid down the door whimpering, “Non, non, non,” And buried his face in his hands. He found an inch of resolve deep down in the far back of his mind, he peaked out of his door, inched down the hall, and glanced into the common room. It was still there. He turned to run back down the hall but bumped into something, he screamed with fright.

“Spy?” Scout asked, and rubbed his shoulder where the Frenchman ran into him.

The masked man hurried to grab hold of Scout and spin him around so the runner was between himself, and the common room. His fingers twisted into Scout’s shirt front, and with all the fierceness he could muster he demanded, “Get that thing out of here!”

“Get that-what? Hey let go! I came here to apologize.” Scout pawed at Spy’s grip.

“Get it out of here now!” He shrieked. 

“What are you talking about?” Scout tried and tried, but he could not get Spy to let go.

“That clown doll, remove it!” He demanded.

Scout’s face melted into confusion. “What clown doll?”

“Do not play games with me, Scout!” Spy yelled with panic.

“No, I’m not! I didn’t bring a friggin’ doll home, just all of Pyro’s stuffed animals,” Scout swore.

They two walked back toward the common room, Spy made Scout lead the way and what Spy saw made him infinitely more afraid. The clown was gone. 

“See? I told you.” Scout waved at the pile and the lack of clown dolls. Spy felt sick with fear, it could be anywhere. 

“Non, non, no,” Spy sniveled, and shook. He spun his head around, looking in every corner, behind himself, ahead of himself. He was terrified, and he grabbed hold of Scout once more to use as a shield. “Scout, there is a clown here, I’m telling you he’s here!”

“Jeez, you really are freaked out by clowns, ain’t ya?” Scout broke the Spy’s grip and placed some distance between himself and the man. “There ain’t any clowns here,” his eyes narrowed with suspicion, “wait are you trying to play a trick-”

Then he noticed Scout go rigid, noticed the boy’s eyes widen and his mouth tremble as it tried to form words, in the end he just pointed.

Spy followed the direction of his finger and turned around to see the clown doll standing a mere arm’s length away. This close up, Spy realized his mistake, it wasn’t a life sized clown doll, it was an actual clown. It parted its lips to reveal a wild, yellow toothed smile, and let out a wicked laugh. Both Spy and Scout were glued to the spot, incapable of moving to prevent whatever suffering the clown had planned.

Then, out of nowhere, the clown was forced to its knees and its throat ripped out.

“That’s the spirit, Sergeant Stripes!” Soldier came up  behind the large, bangled tiger that was making mincemeat out of the clown. Following him were a few of their team mates, and a very angry looking ring leader.

After some investigating and a quick discussion with the ring leader, they found that the clown had no connection to the circus. In the man’s pockets they found rope and knife, and the photos Scout had taken of himself at the photo booth. Clearly, the man was deranged and had targeted Scout for murder. The only good to come out of the incident was that Scout developed his own fear of clowns and could no longer stomach tormenting Spy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based off an urban legend, there are plenty of variations, but no matter what it’s creepy as hell.


	13. Hotel Accommodations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demoman and his mother tour through Europe.

Tavish DeGroot had spent the last month traveling across Europe with his mother. Although she couldn’t actually see the sights, she got to experience the different foods, music, languages, she was able to touch statue after statue in Rome and comment on which was a masterpiece and which was, “A piece of rubbish! I could have made this! And I’m blind!”

They finished their tour in Paris, spending a few days exploring the many places recommended by Spy and enjoying a boat tour around the Seine. It must have been the choppy waters that made her sick, by the time they exited the boat his mother was stumbling. Tavish was worried, he wanted to go to the hospital straight away but his mother refused. “I just need to lay down and have a cup of tea, that’s all,” she insisted.

Slowly, the two made their way back to their hotel, by then his mother was feverish and weak. The concierge helped him get his mother settled in their room and then ran for the hotel doctor. Once the man arrived, he gave a brief examination and proclaimed, “She is very sick.”

“I can see that!” Tavish yelled with anger, he expected a more thorough diagnosis. “Should I take her to the hospital?”

“No, no, no,” the doctor shook his head, “no she is too ill to move.” He motioned for the concierge to come closer, he said something to him in French and wrote a quick note and handed it to Tavish. “Take this note to my home, my wife will prepare medicine for her.”

“You want me to go?” Tavish asked in disbelief. “Can’t I get this in a pharmacy?”

The doctor muttered something then responded, “If you want to save your mother I suggest you go now.”

It felt wrong, but Tavish grabbed his mother’s hand and told her he’d be back as soon as possible. He followed the concierge down to the lobby and into a cab the boy had flagged down. The driver didn’t speak English, so the boy gave directions to the cab driver and saw him off. Tavish waited impatiently in the back, it felt like the doctor’s house was in another country, it must be because the driver was taking him all over Paris. Up and down the streets the cab crawled, and around circles, and through tunnels, and then back again. Tavish thought the man was deliberately driving him elsewhere.

“Hey! What’s taking so long? You know where you’re going don’t you?” He shouted from the back seat. The man only answered in French and kept driving. Tavish felt that it took the doctor’s wife even longer to answer the door, and then fetch the medicine. It all felt wrong, shouldn’t they have more urgency? As the cab driver took him back to the hotel Tavish noticed that they had gone down the same street three times now, with his suspicions confirmed he jumped out of the cab.

He searched for someone who spoke English but couldn’t find anyone, he did find a pay phone and that would be enough. He quickly placed an international call to the base and got Medic on the line, he frantically explained what was happening. The Medic could not make heads or tails of the situation either.

“What sort of medicine did he want you to get?” He asked.

“I don’t know it’s all in French!” Tavish answered helplessly.

“Just a moment.” There was silence on the line until a new voice joined the line. 

“ _Oui_? What is going on, Tavish?” Spy’s smooth voice filled the Scotsman with hope, maybe he could explain what his countrymen were up to. “That sounds odd,” Spy commented when Tavish finished explaining, “what kind of medicine is it? Can you read the label?”

Tavish did his best to sound out the French words, stumbling here and there, but clear enough that Spy could translate it. “Demoman…Tavish, it’s just aspirin.’”

Tavish dropped the phone, he left the immediately, he couldn’t remember exactly how he got back to the hotel, he was too enraged and worried to remember how he got there. He rushed through the hotel lobby and zeroed in on the concierge. “My mother, is she all right?”

“I’m sorry?” The young concierge looked at him with confusion.

“My mother!” Tavish ran to the elevator and the concierge followed. “Where’s that doctor?” 

“Sir, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think you have the wrong hotel,” the boy stated.

“I’m talking about my mother you bloody useless fool!” Tavish stepped off the elevator and ran to his room. He tried the door but it was locked, his key didn’t fit. He turned the knob in vain and pounded on the door. “What’s going on! Where’s my mum!”

The concierge looked frightened, he tried to calm the Scotsman. “Please, sir, I think you just have the wrong hotel. If you’d just let me check your registration.”

“You know who I am! You checked us in! You helped me carry her up here!” Tavish’s frustration was only outweighed by his concern for his mother. Eventually the concierge left and returned with the hotel manager and the hotel doctor. “Why’d you have me running all over town for aspirin? What’ve you done to my mum!”

Tavish grabbed the hotel doctor by the lapels and shook him. The man only answered, “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I’ve never seen you before in my life!”

“That’s a lie! Why are you all lying! Unlock this door I want to see my mum!” Tavish let go of the door and pointed to his hotel room.

“If it would put you at ease, sir.” The hotel manager gave in and flipped through keys from a large key ring. He finally landed on the correct one and opened the door to the room. Tavish bolted in and searched for his mother, but she wasn’t in the room. The room was entirely different, all of their belongings were gone, the wallpaper was different, the furniture was different, even the carpeting had changed. 

“What the bloody hell is going on here!” Tavish demadned at a deafening volume. 

The police were called, a report filed. He even got the consulate involved, he turned to international agencies for help, private investigators, as his last hope he went to Merasmus. None of them were any help, all they ever asked was if he was sure he had the right hotel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is based of the story ‘Maybe You Will Remember’ from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, by Alvin Schwartz. The actual story ends there and you had to go to the end of the book to find out what really happened.
> 
> Apparently, it’s based off of a really old story dating to the 1800s, and was reported in a newspaper as true a number of times. The mother had contracted a plague like illness and the hotel doctor, knowing the story would cause a panic and ruin the reputation of the hotel, chooses to cover up the incident.
> 
> He sends the daughter off so he and the hotel staff can have enough time to dispose of the body and alter the hotel room so they can trick the daughter into believing she had the wrong hotel. Pretty messed up.


	14. The Choking Doberman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miss Pauling gets a dog.

Miss Pauling had gotten a cat, it was a little stripped, ginger cat that she never saw. She had gotten a cat because they were self sufficient and perfect for her seven day work week. The problem was it was too self sufficient, she hadn’t seen it in over a year. It had probably left ages ago to live the exciting life of an alley cat. She still left food out for it, just in case.

In the absence of one pet she found another. One that she could incorporate into her work life. A nice, well trained, attack dog for all occasions. She took it with her on business and it was a hit with the mercenaries. She never found time to name the dog so it simply responded to ‘Dog.’ 

She returned to her apartment one night to find Dog choking. She immediately grabbed the dog and hurried to the RED base, Medic would be able to save her dog without complications. As she sped down the state road she realized she had left her clipboard, full of classified information, sitting on a table completely unguarded. 

“Medic!” She called and hopped out of her car. She picked up Dog from the passenger side and handed him over to the confused German. “My dog’s choking, but I’ll be right back!” She said in one rushed breath.

Medic’s arms were quickly filled with the Doberman and all he could say was, “Of course,  _fraulein_.”

He took the dog back to his infirmary and attended to its blocked airway. It was easy for the doctor to remove the object from the dog’s throat, what was odd was that it was a finger. It took Medic a moment to figure out that there was a danger in Miss Pauling’s apartment, the same apartment she was rushing back to. He dialed her number and hoped that the young woman had not already succumbed to the invader’s intent. The phone rang and it seemed to take an eternity for Miss Pauling to pick up. 

“Pauling here,” she answered.

“Miss Pauling!” Medic gave a sigh of relief. “Listen-”

“Oh Medic, great, how’s Dog?”

“What? Oh he’s fine but listen-”

“Good, give me five minutes and I’ll come pick him up.”

“No,  _fraulein_  listen! There is a man in your apartment-”

“No there’s not.” Miss Pauling sounded so sure of herself.

“Please,  _fraulein_ , I found a man’s finger in your dog’s throat and-”

“Medic, it’s okay. There was a man in my apartment, I took care of it. Now I’ll be there in five. Oh! And do you happen to have any  _Corpse-Grade Quicklime_?” Miss Pauling looked down at the body she put two shots in, it would be a long night disposing of the guy but at least she had Dog to keep her company.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based off an urban legend of the same name.


	15. Backseat Murdering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Medic makes a friend.

Medic was speedily driving between bases and was irritated that he was running close to empty. He pulled into a little rundown station and quickly filled his car’s gas tank. As he finished a man with a briefcase came up to him.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but are you by any chance heading East?” He asked.

Medic eyed the man up and down. He was average height and a little plump, he had thinning brown hair and brown eyes, he didn’t look very attractive, but he looked healthy.  “Yes, I am heading East. Would you like a ride?” 

The man looked relieved. “I couldn’t thank you enough! Do you mind if I use the restroom quickly?” Medic nodded and allowed the man to place his briefcase in the back seat. While the man left, Medic moved his briefcase to the trunk and happened to take a peak at its contents, they were very interesting.

The man returned and got into the passenger’s seat. The doctor drove off down the interstate, pushing the pedal all the way to the floor. It was quiet in the car until the man noticed his briefcase had been moved. “Where did you put my things?” He asked.

“Oh, I just moved them to the trunk,” Medic answered.

The man seemed annoyed by this news. “Would you mind pulling over, I’d really like have my briefcase with me.”

Medic shook his head. “We’re already on the highway, I don’t want to stop now.”

“I’d really feel much better if I had my briefcase with me,” the man explained.

“We’re so close now can’t you wait?” Medic countered.

“No it can’t!” The man shouted, suddenly enraged. “I have very important things in there and I need them now!”

Medic laughed heartily, he laughed so much he had to wipe tears out of his eyes. “Oh,  _Herr_ , do not worry,” he patted the stranger’s shoulder, “I have plenty of duct tape and knives up here.” Medic pulled a syringe from his lab coat’s font pocket and injected the man. Medic couldn’t resist the laughter from bubbling up again. “Oh I’m sorry, this is just so funny! You planning to murder me, and me planning to murder you. It’s quite the coincidence, don’t you agree?”

Medic looked to his passenger, he was already slumped over and unconscious. Medic smiled brightly, it had been ages since he had a live specimen.


	16. Devil's Cut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fem Fortress! The team goes trick or treating, though Heavy is not happy about it.

“Wait you guys never been trick-or-treating?!” Scout shouted over the breakfast table, she had been chattering all morning about the evening’s Halloween activities. She was aghast to hear that many of her team mates had never celebrated the holiday.

“S’not that popular in Australia, actually a lot of people protest it, they don’t like how American it is,” Sniper explained, and then she mentally kicked herself.

“They don’t like how American it is!” Soldier screamed in her face. “That’s it! Everyone is required to partake in Halloween! No exceptions!”

That was the end of the discussion, many of the women didn’t care, they had already planned some of their own Halloween celebrations, but under Soldier’s orders they now  _had_  to go trick-or-treating. It took some elbow grease and creativity on their part, but everyone ended up with a costume. Everyone except Heavy.

The large woman refused to dress, she claimed it was for children and that she would not go door to door begging for candy. “Heavy can buy own candy, she does not need to take from others!”

“Oh hush,  _Kuschelbär_!” Medic slapped Heavy’s arm stood on her tip toes, and placed a headband adorned with cat ears on her head. “It will be fun,” she assured Heavy.

It ended up being a great time. Spy went as the invisible woman and spent most of the evening scaring unsuspecting people. Demolady brought a bag of bang snaps and her and Scout threw them at the other ladies until Engineer, dressed as cowgirl, covered the two in silly string that shot out from her robotic hand. Pyro threw a sheet over their head and mumbled ‘boo’s’ as the walked from house to house. 

Only Heavy’s attitude remained sour. They had to practically drag the woman, which was near impossible, from house to house. She roared with rage when Scout or Demolady threw little bang snaps at her, she snarled at Sniper for trying to help her with her costume, even her beloved doctor could not salvage her mood. The Russian was happy when the activity came to an end.

Once their bags were full of sweets and when they ran out of houses, they committed to a more adult form of celebration. They found a bar and spent the rest of the night pounding back beers and gradually ruining their makeshift costumes with alcohol stains and rough housing. By the end of the night they were drunk and sick off of their candy.

As they made their way back to their base, Scout stopped everyone just outside the door. She pulled a handful of candy from her bag and placed it by the Jack-o-lantern her and Pyro had carved earlier. 

“ _Lapin_ , what are you doing?” Spy asked.

“Leavin’ some for the spirits, you know? So they don’t come bothering us,” she explained.

The others laughed, not maliciously, but in the kind of way one might laugh at a child who still believed in Santa. They filed into the base and each went to bed on their own. Heavy awoke in the middle of the night as she usually did, that was with a large appetite. She went to the kitchen but there was nothing edible in the refrigerator. She spotted her candy bag and emptied it only to find it was full of wrappers, that was when she remembered the candy outside. She took one look at the pile of chocolates and lollipops and she scoffed, “Ghosts are childish belief.”

With a full stomach she returned to bed. Hours later there was a tapping at her window, like fingernails on the glass. She jolted awake, ready to harm whatever invader dared to disturb her, but there was no one at her window. Then there was rattling at her door, she threw off her blanket and stalked to the door, ripped it open to find no one there. Angry that her sleep was being disturbed she called out to the empty hallway, “No more games or Heavy will crush you!”

The rattling and tapping continued and soon it was followed with a ghostly moaning, she swung around trying to find the origin to these creepy sounds but found no source. Then her room suddenly become freezing cold, a gust of wind blew her window wide open and the moaning got louder. 

“Stop this!” She yelled outside, but she lost her voice the second she saw what had gathered beneath her window. Hundreds of spirits had assembled, most of them were nothing but bones with rotting skin, some were fresh with their wounds still bleeding, all were surrounded in a ghoulish light and had outstretched hands as if waiting for Heavy to give them something.

She back away in fear, stunned to see so many of the dead outside her window. She frantically searched her brain for a reason why they were after her, them seemed to want to something. Her soul? Her flesh? She didn’t know and now they were moaning louder and climbing over one another to reach her window. 

A boney hand grasped the window sill and slowly pulled the rest of its body up until a skull with glowing green eyes was visible. It opened its mouth and groaned, it groaned and groaned trying to form words.

“Leave Heavy be!” She screamed at it, it only groaned. She shrieked, “Go away!”

It groaned and moaned and finally formed the words, “Trick or treat.”


	17. The Voice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scout hears a voice.

Scout was snug in his bed when he heard the voice.

“Scout, I’m coming up the stairs!”

He bolted upright in his bed, it was an unfamiliar voice, and none of his team mates would announce going upstairs like that. 

“Scout, I’m on the first step!” It whispered excitedly.

Scout’s breathing quicken and his heart pounded in his chest.

“I’m on the second step!” It announced, still whispering.

Scout flung his bedsheets off and flipped his lights on. He turned around and around in his room trying to find out where the voice was coming from. It sounded like it came from his right, but at the same time his left. It sounded like it was far away, and at the same time like it was whispering directly into his ear. 

“Scout, I’m halfway there,” It sighed.

Scout called out for his team mates but they didn’t answer.

“I’m at the top step,” It told him.

Scout had had enough, he ran out of his room and straight into Demoman’s. He woke the Scotsman and told him what was happening. Bleary eyed and half asleep, Demoman struggled to understand Scout’s predicament.

“There’s a voice after you?” He asked.

“Yeah! Yeah! It’s climbing up there stairs, and it knows my name!” Scout was distraught, he looked pale and his eyes were wide with fear. 

Demoman rubbed the sleep from his eyes and tried to follow Scout’s story. “How can a voice climb stairs?”

“What? No, I…I don’t know!” Scout replied.

Demoman sighed and got up from his bed, he walked with Scout down the hall and to the top of the stairs. Scout trailed closely behind the Scotsman, trying to use him as a shield from whatever could be there. When they got the the stairs there was nothing there.

“It was just a nightmare, go back to sleep,” Demoman said wearily. He turned back and left Scout at the top of the stairs. Scout stayed up all night, he was too scared to try and sleep. He spent the next day alternating between caffein highs and sugar crashes, he was grateful to go to bed that night. He snuggled beneath the covers and then he heard the voice again.

“Scout, I’m at the stairs!” It whispered.

Scout jumped out of bed and turned his lights on, once again he could not pinpoint where the voice was coming from. All he was sure of was that is was after him. It moved from the bottom of the stairs, to the midway point, announcing each step it took, and once it got to the top Scout ran to Demo’s room again. The man begrudgingly listened to Scout’s story, dismissed him, but allowed him to sleep in his room anyway.

Every night Scout would go to bed and every night the voice would announce its presence. It would tell Scout as it walked up the stairs, slowly getting closer and closer until it reached the top of the stairs. At that point, Scout always ran into someone else’s room.

He started to skip going to his bed at all, he’d automatically slip into Spy’s bed, or pester Engineer into letting him sleep on the floor, sometimes he’d be able to sleep in between Heavy and Medic, it made him feel like a child but at least he felt safer. Yet, every night the voice would come. 

“I’m at the stairs, Scout,” It would warn. And he’d wake whoever he was with, force them to listen for the voice, but no one else ever heard it. Even when Sniper allowed him to sleep in his van he heard it. He was squished between the van wall and Sniper’s back when he heard its eerie whisper.

“I’m outside, Scout,” It told him. He tried his hardest to ignore it, he couldn’t keep disturbing his team mates. “I’m getting closer.” Scout buried his face in the mattress. “I’m at the door.”

He couldn’t do it, he woke the Sniper and had him check outside for a threat. When he found nothing he couldn’t keep his guilt and embarrassment from manifesting. The next morning he could barely keep his eyes open at the breakfast table, he hardly paid attention to the discussion around him.

“You have Scout last night?” Engineer asked, and offered Sniper a cup of coffee. The Australian only nodded and accepted the cup.

“We need to do something this is getting- excuse the pun- tiresome,” Spy grumbled.

“I’ve ran all the tests and I can’t find anything wrong with him,” Medic added.

Engineer scratched his chin in thought. “Maybe ear plugs…”

“Oh! I can remove his hearing!” Medic said eagerly.

The two scientists began discussing options when Heavy sighed and hushed both of them. “Scout?” Heavy tried to wake the young man, “Scout? Leetle Scout!” He shouted and the runner snapped awake.

“Huh? Wha?” He blinked.

“Scout, maybe try and let voice reach you?” Heavy suggested.

The young man paled. “No way! I don’t know what it’ll do to me!”

“You must face fears, then you can sleep again,” Heavy assured him.

That night Scout decided he would follow Heavy’s advice no matter what the cost. The second his head hit the pillow the voice came for him.

“Scout, I’m coming up the stairs.”

He took a deep breath.

“I’m at the second step.”

His heart was pounding in his chest, but he tried to calm himself. He would face the voice once and for all.

“I’m halfway up.”

He pulled his blanket tighter around him. 

“I’m at the top step.”

Scout bit his lip to keep from crying out.

“Now I’m in the hall, Scout.”

He squeezed his eyes shut.

“I’m in the room! I’m right next to you!”

That was the last thing Scout ever heard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is based of the story ‘The Voice’ from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, by Alvin Schwartz.


	18. The Hitch Hiker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sniper picks up a hitch hiker.

Sniper happily tapped his fingers against the steering wheel as he cruised down the empty highway, the upbeat melody pouring from the radio matched his mood perfectly. He loved filling enemies with holes, the look of surprise or anger on their faces, the way blood misted out of the broken skulls, the entire job was a perk itself, but there was the added bonus of travel days. Sniper smiled and lowered his window further, allowing a chilly breeze to whirl through his cab and keep him cool. He was overjoyed that their next base was far enough for the team to relocate, but close enough to drive to, and even more happy that the others would be taking the train and he could spend the next forty-eight hours alone.

It had been a long time since he’d been alone with his thoughts, being able to let his mind wander rather than having to focus on a target, rather than having to be so immersed in sniping that he couldn’t risk a single thought other than trajectories and wind currents. 

“Bloody finally,” he murmured, his voice being swept away with the wind. By the time night had fallen a harsh rain crashed down to the road. He was lucky to be the only one on the road, the rain fell so thick it was nearly impossible to see, the only reason he saw a smoking wreck in the should of the road was thanks to a flash of lightning as he passed it.

He only got a glimpse of the wreck, but it was enough to remind him of the danger. That and he could practically hear his Mum shrieking on about cautious driving and bad weather conditions. He focused all his attention on the road and its surroundings and was stunned to see a person walking along the edge of the road, the figure stuck out one arm with a thumb in the air.

It must have been his good mood or some sense of pity that caused him to pull over and open up his passenger door to the person. The face that peered in through the rain was that of a man, he looked to be in his mid-forties and had  blond hair and blue eyes. The man smiled and slid into the cab.

“Thanks for stopping,” he said, his voice was smooth and deliberate, it was as if he calculated precisely which words to use.

“Sure, mate. I’d like someone to do that same of me,” Sniper replied quietly.

The van was filled with an awkward silence, Sniper was a bit shocked that his passenger was so quiet. He had picked hitch hikers up before and normally they always had a story to tell, where they were headed, what they were leaving behind, endless words of gratitude for his kindness. This man however, seemed peculiarly quiet, it made the Australian uneasy.

“Was that your car back there?” Sniper tried.

“Hmm?” The man fixed his eyes on Sniper.

“That wreck, was that your car? The reason you’re out walking in the rain?” 

“Oh,” the man acknowledged. “Yes, that was my car.”

His response made Sniper even more uneasy, he was too calm about the accident. Sniper hoped it was just shock or a head injury, even so, he made a decision to unload the man at a rest stop and pressed down on the gas pedal, the sooner the better.

“There should be a gas station coming up pretty soon, I’ll drop you there?” He offered.

The man didn’t respond, he sat staring at the Sniper while droplets of rain dripped off his nose and onto the upholstery.

“Is there someplace you want me to drop you off?” Sniper asked again.

The man kept staring at him, in the darkness Sniper couldn’t make out his face but a flash of lightning illuminated the cab and the smile on the man’s face. He reached into his coat pocket and Sniper’s muscles tensed in anticipation, it was only a pack of cigarettes. He lit one and held out the pack to Sniper. “Would you like one?” 

“Uh n-no,” he declined, looked warily at the man then back to the road. “Gas station’s not far now.”

“Good, I need a new pack.” He crumpled up the pack and stuffed it into his pocket.

“And a mechanic,” Sniper verified.

“Why would I need that?” 

“For your car.” Sniper said more for his own benefit, to convince himself that he hadn’t picked up a crazy one.

“That wasn’t my car.”

Sniper’s blood momentarily turned to ice, then he reminded himself that he was a trained assassin, that this guy had picked the wrong van to get into. He made a mental note of all the weapons around him, his rifle was on the wall behind him but had no bullets in the chamber. He didn’t even have a knife around him.

“Then what happened back there?” Sniper asked, he had to know his target.

 “Well the driver of that car got a little distracted,” he lilted.

“Distracted by what?” Sniper questioned.

“The knife I put in his eye,” he replied calmly.

Sniper slammed on the brakes, the van sliding on the wet pavement and coming to a sloppy stop. He growled,  “Get out.”

The man didn’t move, he didn’t reach for the door handle or try for an explanation. All he did was roll the window down to toss his cigarette butt out into the rain. “I’m not going to do that.”

“What do you want?”

The man smiled and revealed hand gun. “I want to see how far you’re going to take me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based off the movie The Hitcher (1986) it’s an okay movie, starts out pretty good and then devolves into a typical action-y plot.


	19. The Doll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pyro buys a new doll.

Pyro bought a doll from a local thrift shop. It was the perfect toy, and the best part was it was practically new. It had blonde curly hair that was pulled into a ponytail and tied with a ribbon, it had blonde bangs, and green eyes. When you titled the doll back its eyes would close as if it were going to sleep. Pyro loved it, he began to take it with him everywhere, he loved having the doll stuffed into a pocket while on the battlefield. He’d arrange a plate for it as the table, and would sit it next to him while watching T.V.

The only problem was the doll was haunted. Pyro was sure of it, it could be the only explanation. During the day the doll was just a normal toy, but at night it would laugh and laugh. He stopped sleeping with it because it scared him so much to hear its high pitched laughter in the dark of the night. He asked Demoman to help him, but after he inspected the doll he said he couldn’t sense any spirits or a curse.

It was starting to really scare Pyro. He stopped carrying her with him at all times, stopped sitting her at the table or in the common room. Soon he stopped playing with her at all, he shoved her deep into the back of his closet and hoped she would go back to normal. After that she only bothered him every once in a while. He’d be sound asleep and then he’d hear her scary laughter and a rustling from the back of the closet.

After an internal struggle over whether he should ignore the doll or confront it, he decided the best option would be to get someone else to confront it. He dragged Engineer out of bed and into his room and pointed to the closet.

The good natured Texan chuckled and obliged the Pyro. He opened the closet and fished out the doll. “It’s haunted!” Pyro whimpered.

Engineer turned the doll over in his hands and squeezed it hear and there. The doll’s arms and legs were plastic but her middle was cloth filled with stuffing, and between all the stuffing Engineer felt a small box. He took Pyro and the doll down to his workshop and carefully cut open the doll’s back and pulled out the little black box.

“You see this?” Engineer held the box up. “It’s a tiny record player, battery operated. It’s not haunted it’s just programmed to laugh.” He handed the doll back to Pyro and they both went upstairs to their own rooms. 

On his bed Pyro inspected the doll himself, maybe it was just his imagination. He jumped when the silence was shattered by the doll’s laughter. “Oh jeez,” he sighed. He went to shove the box back into the doll but thought it’d be better to take the batteries out. When he worked the box open he was stunned to find it was already empty.

The doll laughed again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so when I was little I had this doll that laughed and moved, a lot of fun, except at night. Being a kid I’d just throw the thing in my closet and forget about it, till night time came and I’d be woken up by the creepiest laughter and the sounds of something moving in my closet. Still afraid of that closet to this day.


	20. Heads Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Engineer meets a head as big as his.

Nobody knew where it came from, what it wanted, why it liked Engineer, but they knew one thing: it was creepy as hell. One day out of nowhere, a large disembodied head appeared. It was the size of a large beach ball, had grey skin and no hair, it’s eyes were as large as one’s hand, and it floated around Engineer all day and night. 

For some reason it took a liking to the man. At first, the Texan, like everybody else, was spooked by it. They all took turns trying to get rid of the head, burning it, blowing it up, bashing it to pieces. Medic ran test after test and came to no conclusion. Since it had done nothing ominous they soon became accustomed to its presence.

It would float behind Engie, dripping sludge like blood on the carpets. It always wore the same expression, its big eyes glazed over and its mouth slightly agape. It became so commonplace that the others would sometimes use it as extra furniture, during matches Sniper had a habit of resting his coffee cup atop its cranium. 

Engineer began to like the head. It kept him company when he worked late in his workshop, and he liked to speak to it when he reached a snag in his equations. He’d run through the steps one by one explaining them until he’d reach the problem, laugh and pat the head. 

One night, after a particularly hard fix, he relaxed on his stool and leaned back against his work table with a smile. He was staring at the head and contemplating exactly what it was when it hit him the same way it did when he had to work out a tough equation. “You just want a friend don’t cha?” He absently tapped his pen along his blueprints. “Heh, and someone with a head as big as yours.”

For the first time since its arrival the head’s mouth split into a smile. It revealed round, dull teeth as large as fists. Suddenly the head came flying at him and snapped its blunt teeth around Engineer’s throat. It worked its mouth until it bit clean through Engineer’s spine and his head toppled to the ground and rolled.

Within seconds, Engineer’s head floated up to the larger one, his eyes were glazed over and his mouth agape. The large head floated off through an open window and Engineer’s smaller one followed.


	21. Trick of the Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soldier is scared to turn out the lights.

“Lights out, maggots!” Soldier yelled through the large room and stomped over to Scout to rip a comic book out of the youth’s hands.

“Hey!” Scout retaliated.

The rest of the team made their annoyance known as well, each grumbling and cursing the Soldier as the man went about the room snatching away items and ordering everyone to bed. It was one of the reasons Soldier loved these old bases, the large barrack was the only available sleeping space for the team and that meant a strict adherence to his rules. A clear cut schedule that he had the power to enforce while his teammates were trapped in the rundown barracks with him. 

“We we awake at 0500 and proceed through the usual morning run, then a grueling routine of one thousand push-ups-”

“Shut up already!”

“Soldier!”

“Just turn the lights off!”

The team shouted their complaints, Scout threw a baseball at the man and Demo threw an empty sticky bomb. No one ever woke that early to train under Soldier’s tutelage, not even Scout who usually went on morning runs to begin with.

Soldier caught the baseball thrown at him, but was struck by the sticky bomb. “You lot are a bunch of disorderly, useless, downright wimpiest bunch of men I’ve ever served with.” Soldier smiled lightly after his insult. “But I wouldn’t trade a single one of you-”

“Soldier,” Spy grit through his teeth. “Please just turn the lights off and go to sleep.” It was best to cut him off before he got into a well rehearsed speech about the brotherhood their war time had created between the nine men. 

He grumbled, “Fine.” 

He scrutinized the barrack one last time to make sure everyone was accounted for and in their appropriate beds. Satisfied, he flipped the switch down. He froze with terror at what he saw and snapped the lights back on. There was round of angry shouts and threats directed at Soldier. He shook he head and rubbed his face, must have been a trick of the light. He flipped the switch again, and he saw it again. Quickly he turned the lights back on but whoever was just standing across the room disappeared again.

“Soldier!” Sniper snapped at him.

“There’s an intruder in the base!” Soldier shouted at the tops of his lungs. The rest of his team groaned and slowly sat up in their beds. Even though they all knew Soldier was off his rocker, he had sounded the alarm and the whole team was obligated to respond. Grumpily, the team broke into pairs and set off to search their barracks, then the kitchen, their communications room, and the resupply lockers. The results were as they expected, a waste of time.

“There…there was someone here! I saw them! Standing right over there!” Soldier insisted and pointed far wall of their barracks.

“Don’t you usually see people that aren’t there?” Scout said venomously then plopped onto his bed.

“He normally just hears them,” Heavy whispered to Scout with a hint of humor.

“No there really was someone there!” Soldier yelled.

He was ignored, the others climbed back into their beds and turned their backs to him. He couldn’t believe the betrayal. He stood beside his bed, shocked at the lack of faith his teammates had in him.

“Soldier, would you hit the lights?” Engineer’s voice carried over the silence.

Hesitantly, Soldier flicked the switch down and held tight to his shovel with his other hand. There it was again. A tall figure standing on the other end of the room. He couldn’t make out any descriptive factors, it was only a silhouette of an unknown figure. He turned the lights back on, despite his team’s opposition. It was gone again. 

He experimented, flipping the lights on and off, on and off, until he flicked them off and saw that whatever it was, was missing. That frightened him more than seeing the thing, if he couldn’t see it how could he beat it senseless. He slipped under his blanket and plotted his next move, cradling his shovel close.

He peaked out from beneath the blanket to survey the barracks. The figure was standing besides Scout’s bed, it reached down to Scout and the runner made a grunt in his sleep and the figure disappeared again. 

“Scout?” Soldier asked through the dark room. “Scout!” He asked again when he didn’t get a response. “Where’s Scout?”

“Soldier, bloody shut up!” Demoman grumbled.

Soldier got up from his bed and quickly crossed the room to Scout’s empty bed. “He’s missing! That thing got him!”

“He probably went to the bathroom, go back to sleep,” Sniper muttered sleepily.

Soldier warily complied. Back beneath his blanket he watch the figure appear again, making its rounds between the sleeping men, the sound of light steps against the linoleum and the quiet grunts each man made before they were taken. Finally, the figure came to halt beside his own bed, still hiding beneath his blanket Soldier promised to kill the thing and avenge his team. He took a steadying breath, with his heart pounding and the hair on the back of his neck standing up he torn back his blanket. 

The lights switched on by themselves and Soldier saw in full detail the horrifying creature before him. Despite its sharp teeth, eerily clear eyes and yellow skin he held tight to his shovel and tried to make good on his promise.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanna watch the incredibly scary short film that inspired this story? [No you don't.](http://www.buzzfeed.com/adamellis/this-short-film-will-terrify-you-into-never-sleeping-with-th#ka5ew6)
> 
> No really, you don’t.
> 
> At the very least don’t watch it at night!


	22. Clink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pyro likes Scout's dog tags.

Scout had died during the night. Everyone crowded the doorway to his room as Medic confirmed it, Scout had passed during the night. He couldn’t be sure what caused it until he did a full investigation, but he guessed it could have been an irregular heart problem that flew under the radar. “Heavy? Help me get a stretcher?” Medic and Heavy left the room.

The others dissipated as well, all saying how sad it was that Scout died at such a young age, and how quiet the base would be without him. Pyro stayed behind. He was sad, but not deeply affected by the passing. He was never fond of Scout, and rarely got along with obnoxious youth. There was one thing he liked about him though, his dog tags.

They were shiny and smooth, and he liked the way they’d clink and jingle as Scout ran around the base. He looked at them, still around Scout’s neck and resting on his motionless chest. Scout wouldn’t need them anymore. Pyro hurried to removed the chain and tags before Medic and Heavy arrived to take the boy away, but as he got closer he noticed that Scout’s eyes were still open and staring out at him.

Pyro felt uneasy, like Scout was already accusing him of the crime. His dead eyes followed him as Pyro pulled the chain from around his neck. Pyro told himself that Scout  wasn’t really watching him, it was just his dull, dead eyes that happened remain open. He rushed to leave the room and Scout behind.

The team held a small service for Scout before his coffin was crated up and placed on a plane back to Boston, Spy would go along to make sure he reached his final destination. During the service, Pyro played with the dog tags in his pocket, he was eager to pull them out, to wear them.

Once everyone said their final goodbyes Pyro snuck off to his room. He pulled out the chain and placed them over his head, they fell to his chest with a  _clink_! He was thrilled at the way the dog tags looked on him, they way the caught the light and shined, they way they reflected the light in white flashes. He ran his gloved hand over the engraving, he had no idea how to read but he liked the way the symbols looked and felt beneath his fingers. He turned the tags over and felt the smooth side, even pulled his glove off to feel how cold the metal was.

Pyro felt like it was his birthday, he was giddy and he jumped with excitement, and every time he jumped the tags  _clinked_  together filling his room with a cheerful tinkle. He was dismayed to know that his team mates wouldn’t view his theft as simple recycling. He had to keep them hidden, so he placed the dog tags in a small tin box and placed the box in a draw.

That night Pyro curled underneath his blanket, his room was oddly cold. He tried to fall asleep, but there was a gentle jingling coming from somewhere within the base. The sound was constant and Pyro was afraid. Then the sound suddenly stopped, but before Pyro could relax a voice, barely above a whisper, was heard.

 “Where are my dog tags?” It asked.

Pyro yelped and hid beneath his blanket. The clinking sound started again, it sounded just the way Scout’s dog tags did. “Give me my dog tags,” the voice demanded.

Pyro shook with fear, but made no move to oblige the voice. It couldn’t be Scout, he was dead, he was stuffed in a plane and halfway to Boston by now. Pyro tried to ignore the clinking the tags made in the tin box, but the drawer had opened by itself and it was no longer muffled by the clothing atop it. 

_Clink, clink, clink._

The dog tags slid back and forth in the tin box, clinking each time it hit the side. “Give them to me,” the voice whispered, it sounded like it was right next to Pyro.

“You’re not really here, you’re dead!” Pyro told the voice.

_Clink, clink, clink._

The tags chimed loud in disapproval. “Give them back.” The voice sounded sad.

“You don’t need them,” Pyro pleaded. He didn’t want to lose his treasure so soon.

“They’re not yours,” the voice replied.

“They are now!” Pyro yelled back. It was just a voice, a voice couldn’t hurt him.

_Clink, clink, clink._

_Clink, clink, clink._

_Clink, clink, clink._

The tags kept clinking in the tin box and soon all Pyro could hear was that sound. The sound was enveloping him, keeping him from thinking, from breathing he couldn’t hear his own heartbeat over it. 

_Clink, clink, clink._

_Clink, clink, clink._

_Clink, clink, clink._

He buried himself further under his sheets, pulled his pillow tight over his head to drown out the sound, but it was as if the clinking was happening right in his ears. He couldn’t hide from it.

_Clink, clink, clink._

_Clink, clink, clink._

_Clink, clink, clink._

“Fine! Just take it!” He screamed.

The clinking stopped, and his room warmed. Pyro waited with bated breath for something to happen, but nothing did. He had a restless sleep, tossing and turning with guilt, but he still held a desire to keep the dog tags. When he awoke the next morning he told himself that it was all a dream caused by mixed feelings, but when he reached into the draw and opened the box the dog tags were gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is based of the story ‘Clinkity-Clink’ from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, by Alvin Schwartz.


	23. Long Distance Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demoman is contacted.

“Friggin’ thing.” Scout shook his headset violently and banged it on the breakfast table, making everyone’s plates and glasses jump. 

“Scout, you’re gonna break that beyond repair.” Engineer sternly pointed a fork at the young man.

“It’s already broken!” Scout countered, and tossed the headset onto the table where it knocked over Heavy’s glass of milk. The large man grumbled but did not press the matter further. Then Scout accused Engineer, “And you said you’d fix it!”

“And I will, but you gotta get in line, I’ve got an endless list of shit to fix and your headset don’t come close to priority,” the Texan informed.

Scout shot Engie a disdainful look, who was he to decide what was a priority and what wasn’t? Demoman picked up the headset and inspected it, nothing looked wrong with it. “What’s the problem, lad?”

“I dunno, it’s like all static and keeps picking up weird stations, can’t get the base channel at all, so if I don’t pick up the intelligence it’s  _your fault_.” Scout had turned to Engie and made sure the man was aware of his responsibility. 

“I can take a look at it,” Demo offered.

“Uhh? Do you even know what you’re doing?” Scout was skeptical, he’d seen Demoman mix up his own sticky bomb formula enough times to know you should never share a wall with the Scotsman, lest you wanted to turn your single room into a double.

“Sure I do!” Demoman took offense. “I know a fair bit about electronics, bet I could fix it better than Hardhat.”

Scout shrugged. “Whatever, just don’t blow it up, all right?” Scout finished off his eggs and headed off to their spawn point.

The day’s battle was strange, the point refused to acknowledge any player no matter how long they stood on the spot. It got so unbearable that both Engineers had to go down beneath the point to try and figure out what the problem was. There would have been more irritation from both teams had the problem not turned into a paid day off. There was also the exciting bonus of seeing what was under the point, even though it was mostly a mess of wires, cables, and lights nearly every team member was pushing others out of the way to get a peek.

It was odd, but with all the strangeness the Administrator’s predictable disapproval was lost to static and that in itself was worth the off day. Demoman relaxed in his room, scorch marks adorned the walls where he’d set off smaller test explosions, there was a map of the United Kingdom spotted with ‘X’s wherever he had encountered mysticisms or monsters. He was toying with Scout’s headset, in truth he wasn’t that great with electronics but Engineer had been irking him lately, and the idea of one-upping the Texan at his own game brought out his determination.

He adjusted the headset so it would fit his head and put it on, the headband pinched his head tightly and the end without an earpiece dug into his temple.  _How did Scout wear this thing?_  He played with the channel knob and got a mix of silence and static. Then the channel was as clear as crystal, it was gibberish, nothing he could understand but they way it was said sent chills down Demo’s spine.

It was high pitched and melodic, and the tone was intrusive. Whoever was on the other end was cross, and for some reason Demoman felt it was his fault. Then the channel faded out to nothing. He spent the rest of the night trying to find the voice again but he could hardly get static. That night he had strange dreams, bright lights and the same voice from the headset had him tossing and turning with dread. 

He was startled awake by the Engineer. He snapped up in bed, sheets tangled around him, he grabbed his alarm clock but the little numbers were blinking and begging to be reset. “What bloody time is it?” He asked, a mild panic filling his chest.

Engineer tutted, “It’s time for work. Been drinking all night?” 

“No!” Demoman snapped. “I didn’t sleep well, and my bloody alarm clock reset!” He threw the offending object to the ground as punishment.

The Texan laughed as he walked out of the room, “Can’t even work an alarm clock, how you gonna fix that headset?” 

Demoman seethed, but got ready for the battle as quickly as he could. He grabbed a quick cup of tea and just managed to meet the rest of the team at their spawn point. Not that it mattered anyway, because the gate refused to open. No matter the amount banging, or pulling the gate refused to open.

They actually spent an entire round stuck in the room while the enemy roared with laughter. Sniper managed to get a few shots, but with restricted range he was no where near his usual stats. That wasn’t all, sentries inexplicably stopped shooting, points wouldn’t register a person’s cap, the time clock would reset in the middle of the match, Spies’ watches were on the fritz. He had a fairly good idea of what was happening, though he could already predict his team’s response. Demoman followed the crowd of men heading toward the kitchen, and he nodded to Sniper.

“That’s was bloody weird,” Sniper commented as the walked.

“I’ve seen it before,” Demoman responded. “Aliens, mate.” He said it just as they entered the kitchen, and as he predicted Spy, Pyro, Scout, and Engineer all scoffed at him.

“This team gets more preposterous everyday,” Spy said hopelessly.

Demoman put on his best smile and asked, “What none of ye believe in intelligent life?”

“Of course there is life out there,” Engineer said stiffly. “But intelligent? Not in our solar system, and certainly not on our battlefield.”

“Then how do you explain the past two days?” Demoman challenged.

Engie sat silent, fuming a little over Demoman’s triumphant look. “Just because it’s unexplainable doesn’t mean it’s aliens!” He snapped.

The Scotsman chuckled a bit and turned to Pyro. “I can’t believe you don’t believe in aliens, you’re practically one yourself.”

No matter how impossible it sounded Demoman swore he saw the darkest look flash across the masked face. Pyro mumbled furiously and left the room in a huff, Demoman decided to apologize later, after the firebug calmed down.

“Jeez Demoman you always come up with the weirdest shit,” Scout said off handedly and reached across the dinner table. He knocked over Heavy’s glass for a second time and the giant looked peeved.

“That’s rich coming from you,” Demoman replied.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Scout frowned at the man.

“It’s your headset that’s started all this, I think they’ve been trying to contact you.” The Scotsman took on a much more serious tone.

“And that’s how we know there are no aliens out there, because if they have an interest in Scout then they certainly are not intelligent,” Spy teased.

“Oh fuck you, Spy! If anything there’s a bunch’a hot alien babes looking to me to save their race!” Scout shouted.

“Are you saying you have to date women from outer space because you can’t find one here on Earth?” Spy smiled at his own joke.

Demoman made a quick plate and retreated from the oncoming fight. He needed to figure out what the aliens wanted before they did something that couldn’t be undone. He quickly forgot about his plate once he returned to his room. He placed the headset on once more and switched between channels until he found the musical voices. He listened carefully and tried to write down what they were saying, it was mostly gibberish but he had a feeling he’d heard it before. 

“Hello?” He spoke into the mic. “Can you hear me?”

The response sounded angry, like an argument had broken out. Their hitch pitched voices went on and on until he interrupted.

“Can you understand me?” He crossed his fingers, he never had an encounter himself but he’s heard the stories and read the case files. The headset went silent. Demoman sighed and looked through his notes, all he had to go on was the gibberish he scribbled down. With great effort, he got up from his desk and pulled out book after book and began trying to decode the message. It sounded too familiar for it to be a completely foreign language.

He worked for hours, he had no idea what time it was. His eyes were getting tired from peering at the tiny text in the old, duty books, and his mind was spent trying to connect syntax and grammar to a language he did not speak. He was so consumed by his task that he didn’t hear the knock on his door or the Scout enter his room.

“Earth to cyclops, come in cyclops,” Scout shouted directly into Demoman’s ear.

“Wha?!” Demoman spun his head around to face his team mate. “What’re you doing here?” He asked.

Scout shot him an incredulous look and rolled his eyes. “I bet you didn’t even come close to fixing my headset,” he said, and grabbed the headset from Demo’s desk. He placed it on his head and turned it on to receive an earful of static.

“Mate, I’m telling ya, it’s not a technical problem, it’s aliens,” Demoman explained. He showed Scout his findings, but the boy didn’t care. “See this? They’re tryin’ to contact us!”

“Whatever, man, you’ve had one too many,” Scout dismissed him. “I gotta run,  _literally_ , and then I’m handing my headset over to Engie. He’ll actually fix it.” Scout didn’t wait for a rebuttal, he strolled out of Demoman’s room and presumably out into the night desert for a quick run before bed.

“Scout, wait!” Demoman called after him, but Scout was already gone. He grumbled but figured the lad would be okay for just one night. He continued working on decoding the message, while Scout ran far and fast into the desert. Demo was getting closer and closer, working out the words, figuring out what it all meant. Scout was was getting confused, he suddenly was no longer on his usual route, and there were bright lights in the sky, from no aircraft he could identify.

Finally, Demoman did it. After long and careful effort he figured out what the aliens were saying, more importantly what they wanted. His heart dropped as he wrote out the loose translation. Scout, meanwhile, was been levitated into the air by a beam of light. He was grabbed by strange looking creatures, and herded toward an examination table, he tried to fight them, but soon found himself naked and immobilized.  Demoman gulped as he read out what the message, “Collect, examine, dispose.”


	24. The Simpering Sasquatch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saxton Hale meets his match.

Saxton Hale was a man of action and danger, he got his thrills from fighting wild beasts or nature itself, so when an old woman told him he’d meet his end at the hands of a Simpering Sasquatch he laughed in her face. “Die at the hands of the world wimpiest breed of Sasquatch? Lady, you’ve just given me the best laugh of my life!” Saxton exclaimed.

He wasn’t sure where the old woman had come from, or why she was inside his office. He could chalk it up to some sort of psychological corporate sabotage, or hippie infiltration, but either way it would make no difference to Hale. It was impossible for the man to be beat by a Simpering Sasquatch. Still, he couldn’t allow even the slightest rumors of defeat be spread around. “Bidwell, pack my bags we’re going after that Sasquatch!” He ordered, and stalked out of his office to his rooftop helicopter pad.

His assistant sighed, but set about his task. In a matter of minutes Hale was on his way to finding and snuffing out the beast. It was known to inhabit the dense forests of Canada, having a tendency to hide in caves and holes to be safe from predators, and the Simpering Sasquatch considered everything a predator.

Flowers, birds, fluffy little bunnies, even the lanky, tree loving hippies that tried to make friends with it were considered dangers. When Hale found it, it was cowering and whining. He almost felt bad for attacking it, but he had a reputation to uphold. “Bidwell, see to getting this wimp stuffed and put on display! I’m going to go find some aggressive giant wolves that will actually put up a fight.” Hale ran off into the forest while Bidwell struggled to drag the dead Sasquatch to the helicopter.

The Simpering Sasquatch was stuffed, posed, and put on display in Hale’s office along with the many other animals he had killed in the past. Hale specifically had the beast’s face set to snarl, its lips curled back to expose its long fangs and sharp canines. Whenever he pasted the trophy he always wondered how such a capable creature failed to be remotely dangerous.

One night, while walking along his rows of trophies he paused at the stuffed Sasquatch. “You pathetic thing, you,” Saxton muttered to himself. “What a waste of my time, and all because some old hag said you’d finish me off.” Suddenly Saxton Hale felt insulted. “You’re an embarrassment to my collection!” He shouted at the Simpering Sasquatch.

He grabbed at the stuffed beast with the intention of throwing the thing out, no lame ape was going to stand in the glory of Saxton Hale, no matter how threateningly it was posed. Somewhere in between gripping the trophy and hauling it away, Hale stumbled. The stuffed beast came crashing down on Saxton Hale, its long, sharp fangs positioned to look deadly fulfilled their intentions. The Simpering Sasquatch fell onto Saxton Hale, its fangs puncturing his throat, and ending his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is based of the story ‘Old Bess’ from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, by Alvin Schwartz.


	25. Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scout is surprised.

“How come I gotta do this? Can’t you get, oh I don’t know,  _anyone else_?” Scout complained and crossed his arms. “It’s my birthday you know.”

Medic sighed, but tried his hardest not to engage. “For the millionth time, yes I know it’s your birthday, but we all have responsibilities, and yours happens to be preparing the new base with me.”

The doctor pulled down the hidden drive and parked beside the base. “Why don’t you go on ahead?” Medic suggested.

“Sure, leave all the work for while you sit out here with your thumb up your ass,” Scout muttered angrily and slammed his door shut. 

Medic rolled his eyes at Scout’s attitude, but he wouldn’t have to suffer it much longer. He moved down the side of his car to the trunk and peered in at all his supplies, double-checking that he had everything he needed. Now all he had to do was keep Scout occupied for a few hours.

“Hey deutsc-bag!” Scout came up behind him and Medic had to quickly shut his trunk, the boy shot him a suspicious look. “What am I supposed to be setting up?” He asked, while trying to get a look at Medic’s trunk.

“Right, right,” Medic mumbled, and searched through his briefcase, he pulled out a stack of papers and a pen. “First check that all the taps and light switches are working, then do the room checks. Just follow the instructions,” he told Scout and handed over the stack.

Scout grumbled, “Knew you’d stick me with all the hard work, and on my birthday too.” He shot Medic a final dark glance and then went inside the base. 

“ _Dummkopf_ ,” Medic cursed the boy. He grabbed the supplies, made sure Scout was occupied with the kitchen faucet and carefully moved upstairs to stash them. Then he went down to the respawn room, located the spawn switch and set about the usual base set up. He turned on the security cameras, statistics recorders, but he couldn’t set up the actual respawn, not without Engineer present. He was annoyed that he’d have to wait, but at the same time relieved. Turning on respawn took time, time he needed to devote to Scout.

Just as he located the runner he heard the sound of tires on gravel and he mentally panicked. They were early, way too early. Scout must have heard them too, the boy came running out of the kitchen and would have gotten to the window if Medic hadn’t intercepted him. He reminded Medic of a dog, and Medic hated dogs.

Excitedly, Scout asked, “Is someone else here? Are they gonna do this crap?” 

Medic struggled to keep Scout from running off. “ _Nien_ , no one is here.”

“I heard them pull up!” Scout said.

Medic shook his head. “No you didn’t, now, did you finish checking all the taps? The switches? Go finish now,” He ordered and shoved him the the direction of the far end of the base. After the boy reluctantly left, Medic hurried outside to deal with the unwanted visitors.

Scout huffed as he went back to his assigned task, Medic was hiding something from him. He acted busy, and loudly flipped the light switch to a supply closet to prove it. He raced back to the front of the base and to a window but he didn’t see any car parked out there. He frowned, then he jumped when a loud thud sounded above him, he looked to the ceiling. It came from the room above him.

“What are you doing?” Scout jumped a second time and he spun around to face Medic. The doctor arched a disapproving brow at him. “Well?” He prompted.

“Were you just upstairs?” Scout asked. The doctor merely frowned at him so Scout asked again, “Just now were you upstairs?”

“No, I was not,” he replied carefully.

Scout’s eyes widened and he immediately fell into a fighting stance. “There’s someone else here,” he said to Medic in a hushed whisper. 

The man instantly darkened, and that shocked Scout. “There is no one else here.”

Scout’s mouth fell open with disbelief. “I heard them! Right above us!” He insisted and pointed to the ceiling.

Medic still did not entertain Scout’s theory. “It’s just the pipes, do not be so foolish.”

“What!” Scout made to go up the stairs. “Well, I’m gonna go check things out-”

Medic grabbed him and jerked him back down the steps. “It is nothing,” he growled. 

“What’s your problem?” Scout tried to break away from Medic’s grasp.

“We have work to do,” Medic reminded him. “Please go check the communication room.”

Scout’s frown deepened. “What about the room checks? I’ll do them now.” He hiked a thumb toward the stairs, he was determined to check that noise out even if Medic was acting strange.

“I will do them,” Medic said. He then pushed Scout to the door leading to the underground communications room.

Again, Scout followed the Medic’s orders with severe annoyance, but this time he was more annoyed that he wasn’t believed, rather than because he was wasting his birthday. The communications room was eerie, he had never seen it so dark before. Normally, the com room was always lit up and buzzing with the gentle hum of computers at work. He went about the room turning on lights and monitors, and soon the room resembled something he was familiar with. Finished with that task Scout supposed he should go help Medic, but…

He pulled up a chair and began searching the monitors for security footage. It took him a little while to figure out how to access the base cameras, and then to play back earlier footage, but he got it eventually. He watched as nothing happened and then a car pull up to their base, and park besides Medic’s car. The windows were too dark to see who was inside, but if he just waited another second he was sure whoever it was would get out. Then the picture paused.

Silently, Medic had crept up behind Scout and stopped the security footage from playing. Scout looked at him, he had the same look on his face as he did when disemboweling patients. “You…you said no one was here,” Scout quietly mentioned.

Medic just smiled at him. “You can come upstairs now.” He turned around and lead them out of the com room and upstairs. If warning signs weren’t already going off in Scout’s head they would once he got to the top of the stairs. All the lights were off.

What was Medic hiding? Scout’s mind raced with the sinister possibilities. Did he want to experiment on him, murder him, who else was in the base? Scout grabbed his pocket knife and opened it up, just in case. “What’s going on, Doc?” Scout asked, somewhat harshly.

The doctor laughed and replied, “Oh you’ll find out.”  


“Who else is here?” Scout demanded.

Medic moved further into the dark room and instructed Scout, “Why don’t you turn on the lights and find out.”

That was it, all the confirmation Scout needed. He swiftly turned the lights on and lunged at Medic in one move. He stabbed his pocket knife deep in the man’s throat, blood splattering him and the man falling instantly to the ground. The shouts of ‘surprise’ and ‘happy birthday’ couldn’t be more out of place.

Scout looked up from his position over Medic to his team mates, each with looks of horror on their faces. Engineer was the first to recover, he dropped his present for Scout and yelled, “Is respawn on?”

It wasn’t, and Medic’s body remained on the floor spilling blood into the carpets until Heavy finally scooped his lifeless body up.


	26. Midnight Battlements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soldier goes to war.

“Wake up! Wake up!” Soldier shouted and then sounded his trumpet in the worst rendition of  _Reveille_ ever heard. The blaring horn jolted every team member awake and they came pouring out of their room with rage written all over their faces. As frequently as Soldier did this, they never got used to his wake up call. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”

“Soldier I swear to God I’m gonna shove that trumpet so far up your ass you can only speak in A minor for the rest of your life!” Scout ripped the instrument from Soldier’s hands and threw it down the hallway.

Heavy was the next to assault Soldier. He knocked Soldier’s helmet away and placed one huge hand on the man’s cranium, he squeezed his fingers tightly around the skull waiting for the familiar crack of bone. Heavy brought his face close to Soldier’s and looked him in the eye. He darkly warned, “If you wake Heavy again Heavy will crush your skull to dust and then Heavy will send powder to Mama in Siberia and Mama will sell powder to dumb man that believes in witchcraft. Understand?”

Soldier tried to incline his head the tiniest bit to indicate a nod but he could not move in Heavy’s grip. “I understand,” he finally said. The giant released him and he stomped back to his room, the others followed his lead and returned to their own beds. Soldier stood alone in the hallway and quietly said, “But the battle.”

“Shut up, Soldier! It’s the middle of the night!” Demoman shouted at him through his closed door.

Soldier frowned and went downstairs, he murmured to himself about insubordination and deserters. Then he heard the faint sound of an explosion from the direction of the battlefield. “I knew they were a good team!” Soldier excitedly prepared for war, grabbed his rocket launcher and headed out the respawn gate.

He’d never seen the battlefield at night, it was dark and ominous, the only light came from explosions, fiery Pyros, and the light glow of a Medic’s healing beam. It reminded him of fireworks and the thrill of staying up late as a child. He enthusiastically joined the fight, he blew up enemy after enemy to the point where it wasn’t even a challenge.

He switched to a melee weapon, something he could have more fun with. Yet, every opponent seemed to fall apart at the slightest hit. He’d send body parts flying across the field with one swing of his shovel or frying pan. He had gotten so many kills that he decided to check his stats, see if he had broken his record high. He rushed to the respawn room and flicked through the reports that the little computers printed out.

He had to doubled check, re-print, and triple check the report. It said he hadn’t gotten a single kill. That couldn’t be, it just didn’t make any sense, he’d been tearing the enemy apart. Just then a hand landed on his shoulder and turned him around. Soldier let out a scream at what he faced. His team mates were all dead, all ghostly skeletons with little bits of rotting flesh sticking to the bones. Empty eye sockets with worms and beetles crawling in and out. They pulled him out of the respawn room and pushed him down the map toward the last point.

He could see in the distance that the point was bathed in a ghoulish red light and surrounded by the dead. Soldier fought at the dead hands leading him but the grasp was too strong. “Let go! Get off me you dead bastards!” He shouted and struggled but he couldn’t break free. There were far away from the base now, and close to the final point. Soldier could see more dead hands poking up from the ground around the point each searching for living flesh to drag down with them.

Suddenly there was a bright flash of light and the dead men dropped Soldier to shield themselves from it. “Soldier you idiot! Get up and run!” He could hear Demoman’s voice but couldn’t see the Scotsman anywhere. “Quit havin’ a gander and get going!” He scolded.

Soldier ran, as far and fast as he could. He ran all the way back to the base, ran through the respawn room, ran through the building and up stairs until he crashed into another body. “You’ll never get me you maggot-feeding skeletons!”

“Shh!” A hand was clamped over his mouth. “You want to wake Heavy up again?” Demoman harshly whispered.

“Demoman!” Solider did his best to quiet his voice, but he was still well above a whisper. “There were dead men after me!”

“I know, I’m the one that saved you, you dolt! What’re you doing out there during the witching hour like that? Don’t you know anything?” Demoman lightly scolded. “Shoulda let them drag you to hell, what with waking us up all the time…”

Soldier absently followed Demoman back to their dormitories and silently decided to never engage in midnight battles again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is based of the story ‘One Sunday Morning’ from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, by Alvin Schwartz.


	27. Receiving Your VooDue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Engineer has a voodoo doll.

Engineer happily walked into the kitchen whistling a jaunty melody. He was in a good mood, today was going to be a good day he was certain of it. When he arrived at the breakfast table his intuition was confirmed, piled high on the table were pancakes, scrambled eggs, and a mountain of crispy bacon. His mouth watered and he hurried to grab a plate and dig in, but just as he reached for a plate Demoman snatched his wrist.

“What the bloody hell is that?” He snarled.

Engineer flinched at the severity in the man’s voice and the strength of his grip. The Texan was confused, he had no clue as to what could set Demoman off this early in the morning. He followed the Scotsman’s eye to his work belt and saw that the man was fixated on his little BLU Spy doll, his Spy voodoo doll. “Oh that,” Engineer laughed. “That’s just a little something I picked up from that fair the other night.”

Demoman frowned even deeper. “You need to get rid of it,” he ordered.

It was Engineer’s turn to frown, he grabbed his plate and sat down. “And why do I have to do that?”

“It’s not safe carrying that thing around, voodoo dolls invite all sorts of nasties to mettle in your life,” Demoman explained.

Not only did Engineer laugh, but so did most of the table. “It’s just a doll,” Engineer said lightly. “It’s not inviting anything other than Pyro’s envy.” The Texan winked at Pyro, the firebug had been eyeing the doll since Engie brought it home.

That was the end of the conversation, and it did not bitter Engie’s outlook for the day. He was able to upgrade his buildings early on and had been getting kills left and right. The team capped another point and as he prepared to move his gear up a Spy arrived. He only got a flash of the blue suit and a whiff of clove cigarettes before he began swinging his wrench around trying to make contact with the enemy. 

Spy was the one that drew first blood, a slash of his knife left a red line across Engineer’s upper arm. Spy got the upper hand easily, and Engineer stumbled over the ground to keep a fighting chance. He backed into his toolbox and fell over, Spy’s sly grin was an indicator that the fight was lost, but Engie would be damned if he wasn’t going to try. He slammed his hand and wrench to the ground to push himself up. The second he was standing once more Spy fell to the ground, he skull had been cracked.

He scanned around for another team mate, for Scout with his baseball bat or Sniper’s polite nod and smile but he saw no one. There was no explaining it, he looked around once more, saw that his sentry was still packed up, saw that he was completely alone. He took a step and felt something under his boot, lying on the ground was the voodoo doll.

“Can’t be,” he murmured to himself, and picked the doll up. From the looks of it the doll had been lying right where he slammed his wrench down. He shook his head, there was no way that could have worked.

He forgot about it and moved his gear up to where his team mates battled over the point. The sentry and dispenser were whirling to life when the Spy attacked a second time. The Frenchman’s sapper had already gotten his sentry and Engie was next. This time the Spy had his revolver out and Engineer was practically defenseless with just his wrench.

The Spy laughed, “I don’t know what moment of sheer luck you had earlier, but I can assure you it has run out.” He took aim, and fell to the ground in a lifeless heap.

Partially out of curiosity, and partially because it was his last hope Engineer had twisted the neck of the voodoo doll. It would appear that some magic was real. The Texan smiled cruelly, there would be no sapping today. The rest of the battle was a piece of cake now that he alway had the upper hand over Spy. The looks of sheer rage on the man’s face was well worth the cost of the voodoo doll.

As the team gathered in the locker room Sniper asked, “How many times you dominate that spook today?”

Engineer smiled broadly and answered, “More than enough, and would you believe it, this damn things works!” He held up the little voodoo doll of the BLU Spy and laughed.

“You serious? I should get one of my own,” Sniper commented.

“No you bloody shouldn’t!” Demoman shouted across the locker room. 

Engineer rolled his eyes at the Scotsman’s dramatic flare. “What’s the problem? I kept that Spy off my back and kept my sentries running no problem.”

“Oh there’s plenty’o problems! First off it ain’t you that’s keeping that Spy at bay, it’s dark magic!” Demoman ticked off the issue on one finger, but before he could get to his second issue Engineer turned his back.

“You’re too worrisome, ain’t nothing gonna happen,” Engineer insisted. 

That wasn’t the end of the discussion, Demoman badgered Engineer nonstop. He tried to explain that everything had a price, that Engineer’s shortcuts on the battlefield would catch up to him and in the most horrific way possible. The Texan didn’t heed a single warning though, he continued to use the voodoo doll whenever the enemy Spy was near. From stabbing the doll straight through the head with a pin, having Pyro help torch the thing, twisting its neck around, to bashing his wrench over the doll Engineer relished each easy kill. Soon the Spy was too afraid to come within the vicinity of his nest, let alone try to sap his sentries. 

Over time little things started to happen to Engineer, little bits of bad luck. He’d spill his coffee over his blue prints and the ink would run until the schematic was ruined. His left boot kept going missing and reappearing in the strangest places, in the fridge, under the T.V., in Medic’s filing cabinet. It got worse, his buildings would inexplicably explode, his shotgun would backfire despite his careful maintenance, Medkits that were once an arm’s length away would disappear.

Another bout of frustration took over Engineer as his goggles shattered in the middle of a match. “Dang it!” He growled. 

“I told you,” Demoman walked up to him. “I told you it would come back to get you. You’ll reap what you sow,” he ominously warned.

“It’s just a streak of bad luck, nothing more, nothing less,” Engie retorted. After the Scotsman left he decided enough was enough. If he couldn’t keep his buildings together than he’d just have to fight the old fashioned way, with slightly less gun.

He checked that his shotgun was in working order with a nice shot to a Soldier, saw that he was good to go, and headed to the point. Sawmill was an annoying map, he didn’t like it too much, when he got to the point he saw Heavy and Medic taking on four of the enemy. He hurried to help them, but found his boot caught on something.

He looked back just in time to have the sudden realization that he was about to be ripped in two by a gigantic saw blade. The spinning metal blade had no mercy as it tore through him, spraying blood all over the area. Engineer’s last thought was, “Thank god for respawn.” His body materialized as usual, bones snapping into place with flesh slowly forming, and skin encasing the muscles and fat. He was just about ready for another round, but for some reason he was on the outside of the spawn room looking in. 

He was surrounded by darkness the only light was the fluorescent tube lights in the spawn room. He tried for the door but something was holding him back, the same way his boot was caught earlier. He tried to shake loose but found that his whole leg was now stuck. He turned around and what he saw horrified him. Black shadows gripped him and dragged him away from the light, down into a dark abyss.


	28. Hands Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heavy loses his hands and Medic replaces them with a slightly used pair.

Call it a glitch, a tragedy, an accident, or a fuck-up, call it whatever you want it didn’t matter to Medic. He called it an opportunity. The reanimator failed to piece back together Soldier and Heavy, parts went missing and Heavy was left without hands, Soldier was left without a beating heart. They gathered up the rest of Soldier and buried him beside the base with a modest headstone. Well, almost all of Soldier.

Since Heavy was missing hands and Soldier wasn’t going to be needing his, Medic saw fit to sew them onto the Russian. It took weeks of physical therapy for Heavy to even close the fingers into a fist, but soon he could hoist Sasha around the map with him and that’s what was most important.

He never got used to the hands, it was very strange to look down and see fingers that weren’t his, to see scars and callouses that he didn’t put there. Soldier’s hands were smaller than his own and it still angered him to no end that he could no longer kill with a single punch. There were other things too…

One night we was reading from Chekhov and his hands threw the book down as if it were scalding hot. He thought it was some sort of nerve spasm, and Medic said as much, but it was happening more frequently and more violently. Anything related to his culture would be instantly rejected, he couldn’t keep himself from smashing his little wooden dolls, or tearing apart his bear fur cap, he even threw out all of his Dalokohs bars.

He started to believe it was Soldier’s doing. He had read, albeit in Scout’s trashy sci-fi comics, that patients could sometimes feel the emotions or thoughts from the original donor. Medic had refused to believe him, even when they tried to be intimate and the hands disobeyed him. No matter how badly Heavy wanted to caress Medic, the hands would refuse. Instead of gently rubbing the Dcotor’s thigh, they would freeze up, become cold and clumsy.

“Heavy…” Medic sighed with irritation. “If you are not in the mood-”

“ _Nyet_! I am!” Heavy assured. “But the hands…”

“Not that again!” Medic snapped.

“Doktor, please!” Heavy begged. He needed him to listen, he was the only person he could trust. And the only person who knew how to surgically remove the hands. He reached out to give the man a soft touch, but the hand formed fists and took a swing at the doctor.

Luckily, the doctor was swift enough in his reflexes to dodge the jab, but he was not happy. “Out!” He screamed. “Get out!”

“Doktor! Wait!” Heavy pleaded. “The hands! I would never hurt you!” It was no good, the man pushed and shoved him out the door. He was left standing in the infirmary feeling hopeless. Then he felt an itch, an itch that was driving him wild, yet no amount of scratching would soothe it because it wasn’t that kind of itch. Without any resistance Heavy was led outside, he grabbed a shovel on the way out and got to work digging Soldier up. He was sweaty and sore by the time he reached the man’s plain coffin, and he was sick with nerves as he carried the pieces of the body inside.

He watched in horror as Soldier’s hands went about piecing his body back together. Soldier’ left foot was too far rotted, but his right foot was fine, so the hands sawed off Heavy’s right foot and replaced it with Soldier’s. Piece by piece, the hands worked, cutting up Heavy and sewing bits of Soldier to the mess of flesh and limbs. Soon Heavy resembled Frankenstein’s monster, he had messy stitches all over his body, if he could even call it that.

There was more Soldier than him now, Soldier’ whole right leg, Soldier’s chest and left arm. The top of his right arm was actually Soldier’s skin and muscle while his own lay rejected in a bloody pile. He was afraid, terrified that he couldn’t stop the hands no matter how badly he wanted to. He had to helplessly watch them tear him apart, down to the last piece. One last part of Solider remained, his head. The hands reached for Medic’s bone saw and Heavy could feel its sharp teeth at his throat. “Please, no,” he whimpered. “Soldier, don’t.” The hands did not obey.


	29. Infiltration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team is infiltrated by something, and Spy is the only one who realizes it!

This shouldn’t be happening, from all the data he’s collected all signs point to the reverse. He’s absolutely flabbergast, shocked, and somewhat suspicious. The odds of Demoman refusing a drink were very low, and Spy was thrown into an existential crisis, questioning whether or not espionage was truly his calling. In a decisive action to prove to himself that he was a brilliant spy he spent the following week trailing Demoman.

It mostly pissed him off that he was wrong, it didn’t really have anything to do with Demoman’s sudden change in attitude toward alcohol, it had to do with his integrity. During his time following the Scotsman, he took note that the man had changed. He was no longer interested in drinking excessively or in researching the supernatural. He acted quite boring. If he wasn’t fighting he was working on his explosives, and if wasn’t doing either of those things then he wasn’t doing much.

Eventually, Spy called it quits. Boiled Demoman’s change down to the unpredictability of the human spirit. The second he gave up on Demo he found that Scout’s personality took an unforeseen turn as well. The boy was acting uncharacteristically mature. He mentioned it to Sniper, “Scout has been quite the upstanding young man lately, hasn’t he?”

Sniper acknowledged him with a grunt, but didn’t say anything else. They were up in one of the high towers and Sniper was peering through his rifle scope to watch the BLUs during their off time. Spy asked again, “Don’t you find it strange? Do you believe it’s a phase?”

Sniper finally put his rifle down and faced the Frenchman. “I think the kid’s growing up.”

Spy frowned, he had already considered that, consulted his file on the boy and realized that Scout still had another few years before he’d mature. Yet, somehow Scout was acting contrary to Spy’s prediction, and that added a second blow to the masked man’s ego. “But it’s so sudden,” Spy persisted. “He’s gone from goofy idiot to smart young man overnight. And Demoman’s changed too,” Spy added as an after thought. He wondered if they could be connected.

“I think people change.” Sniper shrugged at him and turned back to the window. 

Spy was still suspicious, he didn’t doubt Scout’s ability to develop but it was just too soon. He looked out a window, one different to Sniper’s, the one facing their base. “Soldier’s digging trenches again,” he commented, offhandedly. Sniper didn’t even bother to grunt this time, Spy left him there and decided to observe Scout.

He was surprised to find Scout in Engineer’s workshop, he was looking over blueprints with the Texan. When he entered and said, “My, my Scout, I didn’t know you could add,” a look crossed Scout’s face. It was a moment of disdain for the Spy, a severity of hatred that Spy had never received from the boy before. Then it disappeared and was replaced with Scout’s usual buck-toothed smile. 

“Oh fuck off, Spy,” he playfully said. Then he patted Engineer on the shoulder. “I’m gonna go for a run.” 

As soon as he left, Spy approached Engineer and asked, “What was Scout doing in here?”

“He’s helping me with a project,” Engie tersely explained.

Spy’s eyes narrowed with doubt. He went outside with the intent of trailing the Scout, but he wasn’t fast enough to keep up with him. When he walked back toward the base Soldier was filling in the holes he had dug. Spy lit a cigarette and watched him pour shovelfuls of dirt into the deep holes. “Why are you filling them in?” He questioned.

Soldier filled in the last bit of dirt, looked Spy in the eye, and replied, “Don’t need ‘em any more.” Soldier dropped the shovel and headed indoors. 

Spy was left feeling uneasy. Whenever he had dealt with Soldier in the past he could sense a certain insanity in the man, could see in his eyes that Soldier was unique in his madness. But just now, Soldier was blank, he was devoid of any essential characteristics that made the American who he was. He stubbed his cigarette out before he finished it and grabbed the discarded shovel. 

He labored for hours to get to the depth Soldier had originally dug, he was sweating and his suit was ruined from the dirt stains, but he kept digging. Eventually, he hit something, he knelt down to brush the dirt aside and found a face, Scout’s face.

Shocked, he stood back from the grave and took a steadying breath. Then brushed more dirt away until Scout’s whole body was uncovered, until more bodes appeared. He took count of the victims, Scout, Soldier, Engineer, Demoman, Sniper, Heavy, and Pyro. Almost all of them, Medic appeared to be absent, he left to find him.

He found the man sitting at his desk and he quickly spoke, “I think we have been infiltrated.” He shut the doors behind him and locked them, peeked out the circular window to make sure no one was listening nearby. “We need to leave immediately.”

“What are you talking about?” Medic asked, and stood up from his desk.

Spy recanted his tale about the strange behavior of their team mates and then finally the bodies that he had found. He could see the skepticism pouring out of Medic and he quickly grabbed the man and lead him outside to the mass grave.

Medic looked horrfied. “ _Mein Gott_!” He exclaimed. “What is going on?”

Spy began planning their escape, they had to move now. “I told you, we have been infiltrated, compromised,” he warned, and swept dirt from his suit sleeve. “We need to get out of here immediately.”

“ _Ja, ja_  perhaps you should rest first, you look tired after all that digging,” he suggested.

That set off the alarm bell in Spy’s mind. Throughout all of his observations of the doctor in his years of knowing him, he had never once prescribed  _rest_  as treatment. Medications, tonics, autopsies, or radical experimentations sure, but rest? Never. He tried to hide his discovery but it was clear the impostor already knew.

“I suppose I gave myself away?” It smiled. “Oh well, you were next anyway,” it told him, and then whistled for the others. They came out of the shadows, each looked identical to their victims but yet somehow completely wrong. Spy pulled his gun out and fired, he wasn’t sure who he hit because the second they were distracted he ran.

He climbed into Sniper’s camper van and pulled out two wires from beneath the steering wheel, and used them to start the van. He drove as fast as the beat up van would allow, he swerved between other cars and lead a highway police car on a short chase before he lost it. He had a destination in mind, or more of a person, the administrator would need to know about this. She would have a contingency plan for such an event, and the resources to combat them.

When he arrived at her hideout, he bypassed the security and went directly to her. Up on the large screens used to monitor the battles were his team mates, no, they were impostors, and they looked to be preparing to invade the surrounding areas. He approached her. “You already know what’s going on?”

“Yes,” she replied, and blew smoke out of her nostrils.

“How do we stop them? How many are there?” He rapidly asked. Then he heard the cock of a gun behind him, he turned to see Miss Pauling pointing a revolver at him.

“Miss Pauling,” the administrator drawled. “Do not kill him, we might still need him.”

“You planned this?” Spy was enraged, he went for his gun and Pauling shot his leg, he fell to the ground and hissed with pain. Pauling took his gun and walked away to a corner of the room, she dragged back a body. It was his body, a blank slate that resembled him, just waiting to be stamped with his attributes. 

The administrator’s voice cut through the silence. “We can’t fight robots with people, Spy, you understand don’t you? It’s time that we upgraded our mercenaries to something more efficient.” She stubbed out her cigarette in a glass ashtray, and spoke again, “Something a little less  _human_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is some body snatchers shit B)


	30. Eye of the Beholder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Scout, Pyro, and Soldier use Sniper's scope as a pointer piece for their ouija board Sniper starts seeing strange things.

“Where is it? Where’s the pointer piece?” Scout shook the box upside down in hopes that the missing piece would fall out.

“Mmph, mmph, mph?” Pyro suggested.

Scout dropped the empty box with a little irritation. “Don’t be stupid, Py, we can’t ouija without the pointer piece.”

“Why don’t they just talk to us? Why do they have to spell things out?” Soldier asked.

“Mppph! Mmppph!” Pyro exclaimed in agreement.

Scout made an annoyed sound and threw his hands up in the air. “I don’t know! It’s just how it works!” Hanging out with Pyro and Soldier was fun, but when he was with those two he suddenly understood the frustrations his older brothers must have felt when dealing with him.

“Mmmph?” Pyro asked.

Scout visibly brightened. “Yeah, that might actually work. Hold on guys, I’ll go find us a substitute!” With that Scout ran out of the room.

Soldier picked up the ouija board, pointed to a letter and asked Pyro, “What letter is that?”

The firebug shrugged, and Soldier continued to point at every letter on the board, asking his team mate what letter it was until Scout returned. He was out of breath and he quickly shut and locked the door behind him. Soldier was about to ask if they were under attack, but his unasked question was answered by the banging and shouting on the other side of the door.

“Scout! Open this door!” Sniper growled, and furiously tried the locked door knob.

“We just need to borrow it for a bit!” Scout yelled through the door, then he ushered Pyro and Soldier to the floor. “Come on, he can’t keep that up for long.” Scout then set the board up and placed Sniper’s custom rifle scope in the middle.

“Scout! I swear I’m gonna rip you to pieces!” Sniper kept trying to smash the door down. Like Scout said, the man eventually gave up. The Australian boiled with rage, how dare that hooligan steal his scope for a game! He went off to find someone who could help him break the door down and wring Scout’s neck.

While he did that, Scout, Soldier, and Pyro attempted to contact the dead. Scout placed Sniper’s scope so it was standing upright, its lens would serve as the eye piece. “Okay, so we all have to be touching the piece.”

Each man delicately gripped the scope with their thumb and forefinger, and moved the piece over the ‘hello.’ Scout asked the first question, “Are there any spirits here?”

The piece remained still, then slowly moved to the ‘yes’ in the left hand corner of the board. The three men shivered and shared looks of excitement. “Ask it if it likes bread,” Soldier nudged Scout.

“Mmmph, mmmmmph,” Pyro pleaded.

“No, no, I got it. I got the perfect question,” he assured the two. “Are you single?” Soldier and Pyro both groaned and took their hands off the scope. “Hey! Come on!” Scout yelled at the two. The three erupted into an argument, and then all three screamed with terror as Scout’s door was broken down.

“What the bleedin’ hell do you think you’re doing!” Demoman had kicked the door down and stormed into the room, with Sniper right behind him. 

“Jesus christ, Demo!” Scout yelled back, and grabbed his chest where his heart was beating rapidly. “Gonna give me a heart attack.”

“What have I told you about using them boards!” He scolded the three men. “Now hand it over.” He grabbed both board and scope from the floor and held them out of reach from Pyro. Sniper held out his hand, expecting to get his scope back, but Demoman kept scolding the others. “…and now ye’ve opened a door I hope you know that! Now sit down, we gotta close it, and close it properly mind you.”

The men moved to sit back down on Scout’s floor and Sniper’s jaw dropped. “No!” He refused. “Give me back my scope!” 

“Sniper, we’ve go to-” Demoman started.

“I don’t care! I don’t care about any of this shit,” he snapped, grabbed his scope off the board and left Scout’s room.

“No, mate! We’ve got to close the door properly!” Demoman helplessly called after him.

Sniper truly didn’t care, he didn’t necessarily believe in the supernatural, he only believed in what his own eyes saw. And just now he saw a bunch of idiots stealing his custom scope. Sometimes he really hated his team. He marched back to his camper van and made sure to lock the door.

The next day Sniper was high above the battle in a very nice nest he made for himself. He was looking through his scope, found the perfect target, a big fat Heavy head. He had just gotten the man’s forehead in his crosshairs, was about to pull the trigger when something dark and shadowy passed through his sights. He jerked back as a reflex, looked down at the battle and only saw the two teams fighting. He felt uneasy but got back to work, it must have been the shadow of a passing bird.

That night Sniper went to sleep with a strange feeling. He felt like he wasn’t alone, that there was someone in his camper with him. He ignored the feeling and went to sleep. Over the next couple of days he’d notice more shadows in his crosshairs. At first they were large shapeless blurs that would pop up and disappear. But soon they began to take form, and Sniper realized they were shaped like people, and slowly they began to take on individual characteristics.

Sniper finally admitted that they were ghosts he was seeing in his scope. The spirits he saw were terrifying. Thin, bony, old women with gray skin and dark eyes. Men with sharp teeth and threatening hands. Little dead-eyed children running about with crooked bones, and young teens with nooses around their necks. He didn’t just see them in his scope, he could feel them all around him, especially at night.

He had had enough. With his rifle slung over his shoulder he went inside the base in search of Demoman, he was right they should have shut the door properly. He entered the base and found it odd that even though night had fallen all the lights were off. 

“Hello?” He called out to the darkness. No one responded. He crept through the entrance and flipped the light switch but no lights came on. Now he was scared, he quickly climbed the stairs and knocked on Demoman’s door. Again, there was no response, se he let himself in. It looked like his room had been torn apart, the Scotsman’s bombs were everywhere, bottles smashed, his book collection torn to shreds, and there was no sign of the man anywhere.

Sniper slowly backed out of the room, heard a noise down the hall and he spun around to see what it was, but there was nothing there. He set about finding his team mates, checked each of their rooms and found them in the same condition as Demoman’s. All the while he heard thumps and footsteps around him, but he could never see the threat.

When heard a child’s laughter pass right by him it occurred to him that he had a fighting chance. He pulled his rifle from his shoulder and looked down his scope, he didn’t see anything, and he slowly walked through the hall whirling around every time he heard a noise, in hopes he would see the danger and avoid it. He got the fright of his life when spun around and came face to face with his own image.

“Bloody mirror,” he laughed and tried to calm himself. When he placed his scope back to his eye he saw himself in the mirror again, just before he was about to move on he saw a man appear over his shoulder and stretch out one gnarled hand toward him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go! I better write it...


	31. Bluford II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part I is the first chapter! Decided to add to this story because I ran out of ideas. This was hastily written today so it's kinda ehh... Anyways, Happy Halloween!

The rest of the team waited anxiously for Demoman and Sniper to return with the Scout, but when they came jogging back all they returned with were looks of terror. Each man was pale, and Demoman looked ready to blow chunks. They all noted Scout’s absence.

 

“He’s gone,” Sniper said in a hurried whisper.

 

“Scout?” Engineer asked.

 

Demoman had begun pacing back and forth shaking his head and trying to figure out just what kind of evil Bluford was. “Yes Scout!” He exclaimed in fury. “He ripped the lad’s skin clean off!”

 

Soldier came forward and quietly asked, “Is he dead?”

 

“Of course he’s dead, you bloody idiot!” Demo snapped back.

 

There was a silence, while each man let the gravity of the situation sink in. They were in a sort of daze, not believing that something strange and cruel could be happening because of their actions, yet the evidence was irrefutable, Scout was dead. Soldier was struck hardest by the loss, he had sent one of his own off to war and he didn’t come back.

 

“We should continue with our original plan,” Spy finally broke the silence.

 

Heavy’s mouth fell open with disbelief and then quickly snapped back together in a snarl. “Leave! That thing attacked us! We need to fight back,” he yelled, and headed toward Medic’s car to retrieve Sasha.

  
“We do not know how to fight it,” Spy countered.

 

Medic hastily stepped in, and reminded them, “That is why I suggested we capture it, study it and-”

 

“And you can what? Play doctor and record your findings! Scout is dead, we’ll be next!” Spy hissed.

 

“Can we bring him back?” Soldier asked, but was ignored.

 

Medic’s eyes were shining bright with anger and he took a menacing step toward Spy. “Play doctor? Yes, why don’t I make an actual effort to defeat our foe while you run and hide?” 

 

“I believe this is an acceptable tactic when our foe is a possessed life-sized dummy that just skinned our team mate alive!” Spy retorted. And the two fell into a heated argument, Engineer stepped in to try and end it, and Heavy stood by the doctor’s side in case the fight turned psychical. Soldier kept trying to interject, asking if there were ways to bring  Scout back to life.

 

Finally, Demoman put an end to the argument. “We have to catch ‘em.”

 

“Thank you,” Medic smiled triumphantly in Spy’s direction.

 

“But not to study him, we’ve got to get rid of him,” Demoman corrected. Medic’s face fell but he remained silent.

 

“What about Scout?” Soldier tugged at Medic’s sleeve. “Can’t we just turn respawn back on?”

 

The German sighed heavily, “No Soldier, we can’t just turn respawn back on.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because then Scout would come back with no skin!” Medic barked. “Do you want that? Scout writhing in agony and dying all over again!”

 

Soldier shrank away from Medic, he just wanted Scout back. Pyro patted his back soothingly, while the rest of the team gathered around to form a plan. Sniper took the lead, being the most experienced with hunting. What they organized could only be described as an ambush, sneak up on the thing, catch it, and contain it until they found a way to dispose of it. It turned out to be rather easy.

 

Spy cloaked, and surveyed the scene, he found the dummy still on the roof. He had stopped pacing back and forth and was waiting patiently by Scout’s stretched out skin, every once and awhile he’d check on it to see if it was dry enough to wear. The rest of the team fanned out in pairs, surrounding the base. Demoman set up a number of sticky bomb traps to keep the thing from running off, and Engineer had a sentry built and ready to fire.

 

The plan was to drive the thing over the roof top, if it got back into the base there’d be too many places for it to hide. Heavy and Medic led the charge, joining the thing on the roof with their weapons aimed. Bluford took one look at the two and backed away in fright. Without thinking Heavy pulled the trigger and spat rounds of bullets at the dummy. Each bullet took chunks out of the dummy and the force sent him stumbling back and finally over the edge.

 

When Pyro and Engineer went to retrieve the remains Demoman quickly joined them. “Pick up every piece, every bloody molecule of the thing,” he ordered.

 

The team spent the next few hours triple checking that they had every bit of Bluford. The dummy itself was silent and unmoving, it’s right arm had been severed by Heavy’s bullets, and its left leg was dangerously close to following that fate. Chunks of foam and bits of cloth had been blown away and it took some time to collect them all. Eventually, they believed they had every bit, and had its remains laid out on a table in the infirmary. Medic had just begun to grab his tools when Engineer stopped him.

 

“Fellas, we are far behind on our schedule if we don’t get to the new base soon we’re gonna have to forfeit,” he told them.

 

“So what do we do?” Spy asked, and took pleasure in blowing smoke toward the doctor, who wrinkled his nose and sneered.

 

“Take it with us I suppose?” Engie offered. They all sighed, but agreed. They repacked and readied for the trip, Engineer made sure to have the intelligence this time around. They were just waiting on Soldier, eventually the man came solemnly down to the cars carrying a wrapped bundle. 

 

“What’cha got there?” Sniper nodded to the tarp in Soldier’s arms.

 

“Scout.”

 

\---

 

They got to their new base in record time, just before their battle was to take place. Demoman warned the Medic to properly contain Bluford in a circle of salt. The doctor complained but after Spy, Soldier, and even Heavy joined in he complied. After the battle, or more appropriately, their crippling defeat, Demoman got on the phone with Merasmus. It was a long and loud argument that ended with Demoman accusing the wizard of stealing his eyeball. 

 

“Did you get it?” Spy had been hanging around the telephone listening to Demo’s end of the conversation. “Did you get whatever spell or whatever needed to finish this?”

 

The Scotsman looked to his scribbles on a scrap paper. “I think so,” he replied.

 

The team gathered and performed a long and, unscientific in Medic’s opinion, ritual. It ended with Demoman reciting words in latin over the burning remains of Bluford, this was the first time Pyro was not excited to burn something to ashes. Afterwards, Demo collected the ashes and placed them in a metal container and sprinkled holy water over it.

 

“That should do it,” he said, and held up the small container to the team.

 

“Should?” Heavy lifted one eyebrow.

 

Demoman restated, “It’s all over.”

 

That was that. Except for Scout, Soldier waited for the others to file out of the infirmary before he confronted Medic, “Can you bring Scout back now?”

 

Medic sighed again, though this time not in anger. “I’m sorry, Soldier, that’s just not how it works.”

 

Soldier took his helmet off and looked to the ground. “But, I thought if we had all the...all of him then...”

 

In an act of kindness, not something Medic regularly did, he placed a hand on Soldier’s shoulder and told him, “We will have a very nice service for him.”

 

They did, it was sad and morose. The men getting drunk and emotional, Pyro set off fireworks, and each told stories about their young team mate that made some laugh and others cry. They buried the Scout beside their base and said their final goodbyes. Only months later they would come face to face with Scout once again.

 

But not right away, weeks later strange things started happening. Sniper’s furs went missing, the ones he kept from his hunting trips. The man was livid, no one had ever seen him angry before, nothing beyond frustrations from battles.

 

“I swear, Soldier, if you’re up to something knock it off. I spent a whole three months in yellowstone ‘fore I bagged that bear-”

 

Heavy snickered at that, “Three months? To kill bear? Ha! Little man would not last day in Siberia.”

 

Sniper seethed and stomped away from the large man’s laughs and Soldier’s misunderstanding of ‘bear bagging,’ he kept asking why anyone would put a bear in a bag. Truth be told, Sniper wasn’t angry so much as scared. His stuff was there when he went to bed and gone in the morning, that meant something was in his camper with him. He didn’t like that one bit.

 

No one particularly cared about Sniper’s problem until he insinuated that maybe Bluford was about again. The dinner table got real quiet and Medic quickly dismissed the idea. “Don’t be ridiculous, we got rid of him.”

 

And the others followed suit, either out of true belief that the thing was gone, or out of denial. Demoman and Soldier were the only ones to take interest in Sniper’s claim, they discussed it at length, but in the end there was no real evidence.

 

“Could be Spy jerking you around?” Demoman guessed. “Or maybe you just misplaced them?”

 

“Misplaced them where? My camper’s not big enough to misplace anything.” Sniper waved his arms around to demonstrate the close confines of his home. He was right, if he misplaced his animal skins they would have been found shortly after.

 

“Well, let’s just see if anything else happens,” Demo said, and left Sniper’s camper.

 

That night Medic’s skeleton went missing. Not his actual skeleton that connected his muscles to nerves and skin, his academic skeleton that sat in the corner of his infirmary. He was very angry over the theft, but he didn’t have time to accuse any team mates because Sniper had been found slaughtered in his camper, bits of his flesh had been taken. It was clear that Bluford was back and still seeking vengeance.

 

“Why didn’t spell work?” Heavy asked with urgency.

 

Demoman shrugged, and replied, “I don’t know, Merasmus probably isn’t the best wizard to go to for this stuff.”

 

“What are our options?” Engineer looked around him as if Bluford would be there waiting, watching.

 

Spy was having none of it. “Gentlemen, it has been a displeasure and I hope to never see any of you again.” He had packed up his belongings, found a stylish car, and planned to drive far away from murderous dummies.

 

“You can’t leave! You’re apart of this,” Demoman pleaded. It was safer if they stayed together.

 

The Frenchman showed no empathy, he left that night, but he did not get far. His car and belongings would be found on the side of road not far from their base. Demoman was next, no amount of salt or incantations protected him from the wrath of Bluford. They found Pyro, still in his suit, though his body had been liquified and he resembled a poorly made water balloon. 

 

They tried to take precautions, sleeping in shifts, requesting back up, contacting Merasmus again, but nothing seemed to matter. One way or another Bluford would get them alone and slaughter them always taking bits and pieces of the flesh. Engineer was bludgeoned to death, and Heavy was decapitated. It was just Medic and Soldier left.

 

“What are we going to do?” Medic racked his brain for a plan, for a way to escape. Spy didn’t make it far, but maybe with two of them they’d have better chances. Soldier didn’t respond, Medic had never seen the man so quiet before. The lights went out, and Soldier stood up, cocking his shotgun and heading toward the door. 

 

“I’ll go, you can try to leave if you can, Doc.” 

 

Medic stopped him. “ _Nein_ , we’ll both go.” They both shared a significant look, an ‘all or nothing’ look. When they stepped out of the safety of their respawn room they were quickly taken care of, Medic heard a grunt and yell from Soldier before a dull pain formed on the back of his skull and he lost consciousness.

 

When Medic awoke his vision was blurry and his eyes hurt from the bright lights. He was tied down to a chair and gauze was stuffed in his mouth to prevent him from talking. Once his eyes adjusted to his surroundings he saw that they were in his infirmary, and on his operating table was Soldier. Someone was working over him and when Medic realized who, he nearly retched.

 

It was a horrific sight, Scout’s skin was grey and torn, dried out in patches and it didn’t fit the rest of the body. His face was sagging and the eye sockets were so sunken in that Medic didn’t recognize Demo’s only eye at first. Eventually Medic realized what had happened to his skeleton, it was dressed in Scout’s skin and poorly stuffed with his team mates’ flesh. It looked like a badly made doll, with lumpy sections where muscles were stuffed and saggy regions lacking in any shape.

 

“Do you like it? This body? It’s better than that old dummy.” The voice did not match the monster, it was too normal. Bluford left Soldier’s body and crossed the floor to come face to face with Medic. Scout’s drooping face over the skeleton made the doctor look away. “I know, you’re right, it is missing something.”

 

Bluford looked to a wide window that showed a view of the battlefield, in the distance one could see the BLU base light up. “I think it needs a bit of BLU.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who read/commented etc! I had tons of fun writing these! And for anyone wondering here are my kill stats:  
> Scout killed: 10 times  
> Soldier: 8 times  
> Pyro: 8 times  
> Demoman: 7 times  
> Heavy: 8 times  
> Engineer: 7 times  
> Medic: 9 times  
> Sniper: 9 times  
> Spy:8 times


	32. Bubblicious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scout likes gum, Heavy does not.

Heavy’s face was the picture of annoyance, a deep frown, eyebrows knit together, the occasional twitch of his nostril. Scout was standing too close to him, popping his gum too close to his face. For the past half hour Heavy had been sitting on a bench in respawn waiting for the rest of the team to arrive, Scout had been the only other one on time. And for the past half hour, Scout had been hanging off of Heavy’s shoulder, gloating and blowing bubblegum right next to his ear.

“Scout,” Heavy started for the eighth time, “you are too close, move.”

The large pink bubble that Scout had just blown snapped loudly as it popped, Scout’s tongue flopped out to pull all the gooey candy back into his mouth. “What’s that?” 

And then he blew another, larger than the previous, and even closer to the side of Heavy’s face. The giant man growled, turned to face Scout directly before he cracked open the boy’s skull, but then, the bubble popped. Heavy’s mouth and nose got coated in pink goo. 

Heavy roared and flew off the bench, grabbing Scout by the neck. He went to shout but when he opened his lips he got a mouthful of chewed up, flavorless gum. He made a disgusted sound and struggled to spit the gunk out, eventually having to drop the runner to use his hands. 

Other team members slowly made their way in, finding Heavy fighting to remove the long, sticky strands of gum. Medic tried to help, inadvertently getting stray feathers from his doves stuck to the Russian. 

Scout was in hysterics, folded over himself laughing so hard he made no sound. It took him awhile before he had enough air to snicker out, “Heavy, if you wanted a piece gum you coulda just asked.”

—

Heavy didn’t think a piece of candy could be so infuriating, perhaps it was just the devourer of said candy. He wasn’t sure if Scout was doing it on purpose or not, but Heavy was finding gum everywhere. If he reached beneath a table his fingers would end up covered in wet, gooey gum. Or he’d find the pink gunk clinging to the bottom of his boots. He started to get more suspicious when a wad blocked up one of Sasha’s barrels. Then his suspicions were confirmed when one day he bit into his Sanvich and found he couldn’t stop chewing.

But Heavy was good hearted and fair, instead of killing the Scout like he should he bought him a pack of gum, and waited to give it to him. 

The runner laughed, a little wary, expecting the pack to shock him, or the gum to be sour, but Heavy’s face showed no cruel intentions. He accepted, slipped a stick out and ripped the wrapper off. 

“You’re an okay guy, Heavy, a good sport,” Scout admitted, and chewed the gum to an even consistency. 

“Da,” Heavy agreed, and waited. 

Scout kept chewing, working the gum to that perfect elasticity for blowing bubbles, his jaw working up and down. Slowly it became more difficult rather than easier, the gum getting thicker, the flavor fading. The wad had somehow gotten larger, filling all of Scout’s mouth, and the taste, the taste went from sweet to putrid. 

Heavy watched the boy’s expression go from smug triumph, to confusion, to denial, to disgust. Scout gagged and struggled to spit the wad out, what was once a sweet stick of gum had become a lump of fatty, rotten flesh. His tongue fought to push the flesh out, thick, gray blood dripping down his chin as his spat and heaved. 

The large Russian grinned, “Heavy prefers chocolates.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there’s this Turkish superstition that if you chew gum after midnight it will turn into human flesh in your mouth


End file.
